:-NRLF 


GABRIELLE  DE  BERGERAC 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 
BY       HENRY       JAMES 


NEW   YORK 

BONI  AND  LIVERIGHT 

1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1918. 
BY  BONI  &  LIVERIGHT,  INC. 


GABRIELLE  DE  BERGERAC 


d O i in  n 


GABRIELLE  DE  BERGERAC 

PART  I 

MY  good  old  friend,  in  his  white 
flannel   dressing-gown,    with   his 
wig  "removed,"  as  they  say  of  the 
dinner-service,     by     a     crimson 
nightcap,  sat  for  some  moments  gazing  into  the 
fire.     At  last  he  looked  up.     I  knew  what 
was  coming.     "Apropos,  that  little  debt  of 
mine — 

Not  that  the  debt  was  really  very  little.  But 
M.  de  Bergerac  was  a  man  of  honor,  and  I 
knew  I  should  receive  my  dues.  He  told  me 
frankly  that  he  saw  no  way,  either  in  the  pres 
ent  or  the  future,  to  reimburse  me  in  cash. 
His  only  treasures  were  his  paintings;  would 
I  choose  one  of  them?  Now  I  had  not  spent 
an  hour  in  M.  de  Bergerac's  little  parlor  twice 
a  week  for  three  winters,  without  learning  that 

7 


8  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

the  Baron's  paintings  were,  with  a  single  ex 
ception,  of  very  indifferent  merit.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  had  taken  a  great  fancy  to  the 
picture  thus  excepted.  Yet,  as  I  knew  it  was 
a  family  portrait,  I  hesitated  to  claim  it.  I 
refused  to  make  a  choice.  M.  de  Bergerac, 
however,  insisted,  and  I  finally  laid  my  finger 
on  the  charming  image  of  my  friend's  aunt. 
I  of  course  insisted,  on  my  side,  that  M.  de 
Bergerac  should  retain  it  during  the  remainder 
of  his  life,  and  so  it  was  only  after  his  decease 
that  I  came  into  possession  of  it.  It  hangs 
above  my  table  as  I  write,  and  I  have  only  to 
glance  up  at  the  face  of  my  heroine  to  feel 
how  vain  it  is  to  attempt  to  describe  it.  The 
portrait  represents,  in  dimensions  several  de 
grees  below  those  of  nature,  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  a  young  girl  of  two-and-twenty. 
The  execution  of  the  work  is  not  especially 
strong,  but  it  is  thoroughly  respectable  and 
one  may  easily  see  that  the  painter  deeply  ap 
preciated  the  character  of  the  face.  The  coun 
tenance  is  interesting  rather  than  beautiful,— 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 


the  forehead  broad  and  open,  the  eyes  slightly 
prominent,  all  the  features  full  and  firm  and 
yet  replete  with  gentleness.  The  head  is 
slightly  thrown  back,  as  if  in  movement,  and 
the  lips  are  parted  in  a  half-smile.  And  yet, 
in  spite  of  this  tender  smile,  I  always  fancy 
that  the  eyes  are  sad.  The  hair,  dressed  with 
out  powder,  is  rolled  back  over  a  high  cushion 
(as  I  suppose),  and  adorned  just  above  the 
left  ear  with  a  single  white  rose;  while,  on  the 
other  side,  a  heavy  tress  from  behind  hangs 
upon  the  neck  with  a  sort  of  pastoral  freedom. 
The  neck  is  long  and  full,  and  the  shoulders 
rather  broad.  The  whole  face  has  a  look  of 
mingled  softness  and  decision,  and  seems  to 
reveal  a  nature  inclined  to  revery,  affection, 
and  repose,  but  capable  of  action  and  even  of 
heroism.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  died  under  the 
axe  of  the  Terrorists.  Now  that  I  had  ac 
quired  a  certain  property  in  this  sole  memento 
of  her  life,  I  felt  a  natural  curiosity  as  to  her 
character  and  history.  Had  M.  de  Bergerac 
known  his  aunt?  Did  he  remember  her? 


10  GABHIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

Would  it  be  a  tax  on  his  good-nature  to  sug 
gest  that  he  should  favor  me  with  a  few  remi 
niscences?  The  old  man  fixed  his  eyes  on  the 
fire,  and  laid  his  hand  on  mine,  as  if  his  mem 
ory  were  fain  to  draw  from  both  sources — 
from  the  ruddy  glow  and  from  my  fresh  young 
blood — a  certain  vital,  quickening  warmth.  A 
mild,  rich  smile  ran  to  his  lips,  and  he  pressed 
my  hand.  Somehow, — I  hardly  know  why,— 
I  felt  touched  almost  to  tears.  Mile,  de  Ber- 
gerac  had  been  a  familiar  figure  in  her 
nephew's  boyhood,  and  an  important  event  in 
her  life  had  formed  a  sort  of  episode  in  his 
younger  days.  It  was  a  simple  enough  story; 
but  such  as  it  was,  then  and  there,  settling 
back  into  his  chair,  with  the  fingers  of  the 
clock  wandering  on  to  the  small  hours  of  the 
night,  he  told  it  with  a  tender,  lingering  gar 
rulity.  Such  as  it  is,  I  repeat  it.  I  shall  give, 
as  far  as  possible,  my  friend's  words,  or  the 
English  of  them;  but  the  reader  will  have  to 
do  without  his  inimitable  accents.  For  them 
there  is  no  English. 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  11 

My  father's  household  at  Bergerac  (said  the 
Baron)  consisted,  exclusive  of  the  servants,  of 
five  persons, — himself,  my  mother,  my  aunt 
(Mile,  de  Bergerac),  M.  Coquelin  (my  pre 
ceptor),  and  M.  Coquelin's  pupil,  the  heir  of 
the  house.  Perhaps,  indeed,  I  should  have 
numbered  M.  Coquelin  among  the  servants. 
It  is  certain  that  my  mother  did.  Poor  little 
woman!  she  was  a  great  stickler  for  the  rights 
of  birth.  Her  own  birth  was  all  she  had,  for 
she  was  without  health,  beauty,  or  fortune. 
My  father,  on  his  side,  had  very  little  of  the 
last;  his  property  of  Bergerac  yielded  only 
enough  to  keep  us  without  discredit.  We  gave 
no  entertainments,  and  passed  the  whole  year 
in  the  country ;  and  as  my  mother  was  resolved 
that  her  weak  health  should  do  her  a  kindness 
as  well  as  an  injury,  it  was  put  forward  as  an 
apology  for  everything.  We  led  at  best  a 
simple,  somnolent  sort  of  life.  There  was  a 
terrible  amount  of  leisure  for  rural  gentlefolks 
in  those  good  old  days.  We  slept  a  great  deal; 
we  slept,  you  will  say,  on  a  volcano.  It  was 


12  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

a  very  different  world  from  this  patent  new 
world  of  yours,  and  I  may  say  that  I  was  born 
on  a  different  planet.  Yes,  in  1789,  there 
came  a  great  convulsion;  the  earth  cracked 
and  opened  and  broke,  and  this  poor  old  pays 
de  France  went  whirling  through  space. 
When  I  look  back  at  my  childhood,  I  look  over 
a  gulf.  Three  years  ago,  I  spent  a  week  at 
a  country  house  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ber- 
gerac,  and  my  hostess  drove  me  over  to  the 
site  of  the  chateau.  The  house  has  disap 
peared,  and  there's  a  homoeopathic — hydro 
pathic — what  do  you  call  it? — establishment 
erected  in  its  place.  But  the  little  town  is 
there,  and  the  bridge  on  the  river,  and  the 
church  where  I  was  christened,  and  the  double 
row  of  lime-trees  on  the  market-place,  and 
the  fountain  in  the  middle.  There's  only  one 
striking  difference :  the  sky  is  changed.  I  was 
born  under  the  old  sky.  It  was  black  enough, 
of  course,  if  we  had  only  had  eyes  to  see  it; 
but  to  me,  I  confess,  it  looked  divinely  blue. 
And  in  fact  it  was  very  bright, — the  little 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  13 

patch  under  which  I  cast  my  juvenile  shadow. 
An  odd  enough  little  shadow  you  would 
have  thought  it.  I  was  promiscuously  cud 
dled  and  fondled.  I  was  M.  le  Cheva 
lier,  and  prospective  master  of  Bergerac;  and 
when  I  walked  to  church  on  Sunday,  I 
had  a  dozen  yards  of  lace  on  my  coat  and  a 
little  sword  at  my  side.  My  poor  mother  did 
her  best  to  make  me  good  for  nothing.  She 
had  her  maid  to  curl  my  hair  with  the  tongs, 
and  she  used  with  her  own  fingers  to  stick 
little  black  patches  on  my  face.  And  yet  I 
was  a  good  deal  neglected  too,  and  I  would 
go  for  days  with  black  patches  of  another  sort. 
I'm  afraid  I  should  have  got  very  little  educa 
tion  if  a  kind  Providence  hadn't  given  me 
poor  M.  Coquelin.  A  kind  Providence,  that 
is,  and  my  father ;  for  with  my  mother  my  tutor 
was  no  favorite.  She  thought  him — and,  in 
deed,  she  called  him — a  bumpkin,  a  clown. 
There  was  a  very  pretty  abbe  among  her 
friends,  M.  Tiblaud  by  name,  whom  she 
wished  to  install  at  the  chateau  as  my  intellec- 


14  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

tual,  and  her  spiritual,  adviser;  but  my  father, 
who,  without  being  anything  of  an  esprit  fort, 
had  an  incurable  aversion  to  a  priest  out  of 
church,  very  soon  routed  this  pious  scheme. 
My  poor  father  was  an  odd  figure  of  a  man. 
He  belonged  to  a  type  as  completely  obsolete 
as  the  biggest  of  those  big-boned,  pre-historic 
monsters  discovered  by  M.  Cuvier.  He  was 
not  overburdened  with  opinions  or  principles. 
The  only  truth  that  was  absolute  to  his  per 
ception  was  that  the  house  of  Bergerac  was 
de  bonne  noblesse.  His  tastes  were  not  deli 
cate.  He  was  fond  of  the  open  air,  of  long 
rides,  of  the  smell  of  the  game-stocked  woods 
in  autumn,  of  playing  at  bowls,  of  a  drinking- 
cup,  of  a  dirty  pack  of  cards,  and  a  free- 
spoken  tavern  Hebe.  I  have  nothing  of  him 
but  his  name.  I  strike  you  as  an  old  fossil, 
a  relic,  a  mummy.  Good  heavens !  you  should 
have  seen  him, — his  good,  his  bad  manners,  his 
arrogance,  his  bonhomie,  his  stupidity  and 
pluck. 

My  early  years  had  promised  ill  for  my 


GABRIELLE    I)E    BEUGEUAC  15 

health;  I  was  listless  and  languid,  and  my 
father  had  been  content  to  leave  me  to  the 
women,  who,  on  the  whole,  as  I  have  said,  left 
me  a  good  deal  to  myself.  But  one  morning  he 
seemed  suddenly  to  remember  that  he  had  a 
little  son  and  heir  running  wild.  It  was,  I  re 
member,  in  my  ninth  year,  a  morning  early  in 
June,  after  breakfast,  at  eleven  o'clock.  lie 
took  me  by  the  hand  and  led  me  out  on  the 
terrace,  and  sat  down  and  made  me  stand  be 
tween  his  knees.  I  was  engaged  upon  a  great 
piece  of  bread  and  butter,  which  I  had 
brought  away  from  the  table.  He  put  his 
hand  into  my  hair,  and,  for  the  first  time  that 
I  could  remember,  looked  me  straight  in  the 
face.  I  had  seen  him  take  the  forelock  of  a 
young  colt  in  the  same  way,  when  he  wished  to 
look  at  its  teeth.  What  did  he  want?  Was 
he  going  to  send  me  for  sale?  His  eyes 
seemed  prodigiously  black  and  his  eyebrows 
terribly  thick.  They  were  very  much  the  eye 
brows  of  that  portrait.  My  father  passed  his 


16  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

other  hand  over  the  muscles  of  my  arms  and 
the  sinews  of  my  poor  little  legs. 

"Chevalier,"    said   he,    "you're    dreadfully 
puny.    What's  one  to  do  with  you?" 

I  dropped  my  eyes  and  said  nothing. 
Heaven  knows  I  felt  puny. 

"It's  time  you  knew  how  to  read  and  write. 
What  are  you  blushing  at?" 

"I  do  know  how  to  read,"  said  I. 

My  father  stared.  "Pray,  who  taught 
you?" 

"I  learned  in  a  book." 

"What  book?" 

I  looked  up  at  my  father  before  I  answered. 
His  eyes  were  bright,  and  there  was  a  little 
flush  in  his  face, — I  hardly  knew  whether  of 
pleasure  or  anger.  I  disengaged  myself  and 
went  into  the  drawing-room,  where  I  took 
from  a  cupboard  in  the  wall  an  odd  volume  of 
Scarron's  Eomcun  comique.  As  I  had  to  go 
through  the  house,  I  was  absent  some  minutes. 
When  I  came  back  I  found  a  stranger  on  the 
terrace.  A  young  man  in  poor  clothes,  with 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  17 

a  walking-stick,  had  come  up  from  the  avenue, 
and  stood  before  my  father,  with  his  hat  in  his 
hand.  At  the  farther  end  of  the  terrace  was 
my  aunt.  She  was  sitting  on  the  parapet, 
playing  with  a  great  black  crow,  which  we 
kept  in  a  cage  in  the  dining-room  window.  I 
betook  myself  to  my  father's  side  with  my 
book,  and  stood  staring  at  our  visitor.  He 
was  a  dark-eyed,  sunburnt  young  man,  of 
about  twenty-eight,  of  middle  height,  broad  in 
the  shoulders  and  short  in  the  neck,  with  a 
slight  lameness  in  one  of  his  legs.  He  looked 
travel-stained  and  weary  and  pale.  I  remem 
ber  there  was  something  prepossessing  in  his 
being  pale.  I  didn't  know  that  the  paleness 
came  simply  from  his  being  horribly  hungry. 

"In  view  of  these  facts,"  he  said,  as  I  came 
up,  "I  have  ventured  to  presume  upon  the 
good-will  of  M.  le  Baron." 

My  father  sat  back  in  his  chair,  with  his 
legs  apart  and  a  hand  on  each  knee  and  his 
waistcoat  unbuttoned,  as  was  usual  after  a 
meal.  "Upon  my  word,"  he  said,  "I  don't 


18  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

know  what  I  can  do  for  you.  There's  no 
place  for  you  in  my  own  household/' 

The  young  man  was  silent  a  moment.  "Has 
M.  le  Baron  any  children?"  he  asked,  after  a 
pause. 

"I  have  my  son  whom  you  see  here." 

"May  I  inquire  if  M.  le  Chevalier  is  sup 
plied  with  a  preceptor?" 

My  father  glanced  down  at  me.  "Indeed, 
he  seems  to  be,"  he  cried.  "What  have  you 
got  there?"  And  he  took  my  book.  "The 
little  rascal  has  M.  Scarron  for  a  teacher. 
This  is  his  preceptor!" 

I  blushed  very  hard,  and  the  young  man 
smiled.  "Is  that  your  only  teacher?"  he 
asked. 

"My  aunt  taught  me  to  read,"  I  said,  look 
ing  round  at  her. 

"And  did  your  aunt  recommend  this  book?" 
asked  my  father. 

"My  aunt  gave  me  M.  Plutarque,"  I  said. 

My  father  burst  out  laughing,  and  the  young 
man  put  his  hat  up  to  his  mouth.  But  I  could 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  19 

see  that  above  it  his  eyes  had  a  very  good- 
natured  look.  My  aunt,  seeing  that  her  name 
had  been  mentioned,  walked  slowly  over  to 
where  we  stood,  still  holding  her  crow  on  her 
hand.  You  have  her  there  before  you;  judge 
how  she  looked.  I  remember  that  she  fre 
quently  dressed  in  blue,  my  poor  aunt,  and  I 
know  that  she  must  have  dressed  simply. 
Fancy  her  in  a  light  stuff  gown,  covered  with 
big  blue  flowers,  with  a  blue  ribbon  in  her  dark 
hair,  and  the  points  of  her  high-heeled  blue 
slippers  peeping  out  under  her  stiff  white  petti 
coat.  Imagine  her  strolling  along  the  terrace 
of  the  chateau  with  a  villainous  black  crow 
perched  on  her  wrist.  You'll  admit  it's  a  pic 
ture. 

"Is  all  this  true,  sister?"  said  my  father.  "Is 
the  Chevalier  such  a  scholar?" 

"He's  a  clever  boy,"  said  my  aunt,  putting 
her  hand  on  my  head. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  at  a  pinch  he  could  do 
without  a  preceptor,"  said  my  father.  "He  has 
such  a  learned  aunt." 


20  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

"I've  taught  him  all  I  know.    He  had  begui 
to  ask  me  questions  that  I  was  quite  unable  t< 


answer." 


"I  should  think  he  might,"  cried  my  father 
with  a  broad  laugh,  "when  once  he  had  got  int< 
M.  Scarron!" 

"Questions  out  of  Plutarch,"  said  Mile.  d< 
Bergerac,  "which  you  must  know  Latin  t< 


answer." 


"Would  you  like  to  know  Latin,  M.  L 
Chevalier?"  said  the  young  man,  looking  at  m< 
with  a  smile. 

"Do  you  know  Latin, — you?"  I  asked. 

"Perfectly,"  said  the  young  man,  with  th( 
same  smile. 

"Do  you  want  to  learn  Latin,  Chevalier?' 
said  my  aunt. 

"Every  gentleman  learns  Latin,"  said  the 
young  man. 

I  looked  at  the  poor  fellow,  his  dusty  shoe* 
and  his  rusty  clothes.  "But  you're  not  a  gen 
tleman,"  said  I. 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  21 

He  blushed  up  to  his  eyes.  "Ah,  I  only 
each  it,"  he  said. 

In  this  way  it  was  that  Pierre  Coquelin  came 
o  be  my  governor.  My  father,  who  had  a 
aortal  dislike  to  all  kinds  of  cogitation  and  in- 
[iiiry,  engaged  him  on  the  simple  testimony  of 
ds  face  and  of  his  own  account  of  his  talents. 
ilis  history,  as  he  told  it,  was  in  three  words 
.s  follows :  He  was  of  our  province,  and  neither 
Qore  nor  less  than  the  son  of  a  village  tailor, 
rle  is  my  hero:  tirez-vous  de  la.  Showing  a 
ively  taste  for  books,  instead  of  being  pro- 
noted  to  the  paternal  bench,  he  had  been  put 
o  study  with  the  Jesuits.  After  a  residence 
>f  some  three  years  with  these  gentlemen,  he 
iad  incurred  their  displeasure  by  a  foolish 
>reach  of  discipline,  and  had  been  turned  out 
nto  the  world.  Here  he  had  endeavored  to 
nake  capital  out  of  his  excellent  education, 
ind  had  gone  up  to  Paris  with  the  hope  of 
:arning  his  bread  as  a  scribbler.  But  in  Paris 
le  scribbled  himself  hungry  and  nothing  more, 
ind  was  in  fact  in  a  fair  way  to  die  of  star- 


22  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

vation.  At  last  he  encountered  an  agent  of  the 
Marquis  de  Rochambeau,  who  was  collecting 
young  men  for  the  little  army  which  the  latter 
was  prepared  to  conduct  to  the  aid  of  the 
American  insurgents.  He  had  engaged  him 
self  among  Rochambeau's  troops,  taken  part  in 
several  battles,  and  finally  received  a  wound 
in  his  leg  of  which  the  effect  was  still  percepti 
ble.  At  the  end  of  three  years  he  had  returned 
to  France,  and  repaired  on  foot,  with  what 
speed  he  might,  to  his  native  town;  but  only  to 
find  that  in  his  absence  his  father  had  died, 
after  a  tedious  illness,  in  which  he  had  vainly 
lavished  his  small  earnings  upon  the  physicians, 
and  that  his  mother  had  married  again,  very 
little  to  his  taste.  Poor  Coquelin  was  friend 
less,  penniless,  and  homeless.  But  once  back 
on  his  native  soil,  he  found  himself  possessed 
again  by  his  old  passion  for  letters,  and,  like 
all  starving  members  of  his  craft,  he  had  turned 
his  face  to  Paris.  He  longed  to  make  up  for 
his  three  years  in  the  wilderness.  He  trudged 
along,  lonely,  hungry,  and  weary,  till  he  came 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  23 

to  the  gates  of  Bergerac.  Here,  sitting  down 
to  rest  on  a  stone,  he  saw  us  come  out  on  the 
terrace  to  digest  our  breakfast  in  the  sun. 
Poor  Coquelin!  he  had  the  stomach  of  a  gen 
tleman.  He  was  filled  with  an  irresistible 
longing  to  rest  awhile  from  his  struggle  with 
destiny,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  for  a  mess 
of  smoking  pottage  he  would  gladly  exchange 
his  vague  and  dubious  future.  In  obedience 
to  this  simple  impulse, — an  impulse  touching 
in  its  humility,  when  you  knew  the  man, — he 
made  his  way  up  the  avenue.  We  looked  af 
fable  enough, — an  honest  country  gentleman, 
a  young  girl  playing  with  a  crow,  and  a  little 
boy  eating  bread  and  butter ;  and  it  turned  out, 
we  were  as  kindly  as  we  looked. 

For  me,  I  soon  grew  extremely  fond  of  him, 
and  I  was  glad  to  think  in  later  days  that  he 
had  found  me  a  thoroughly  docile  child.  In 
those  days,  you  know,  thanks  to  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau,  there  was  a  vast  stir  in  men's  no 
tions  of  education,  and  a  hundred  theories 
afloat  about  the  perfect  teacher  and  the  perfect 


24  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

pupil.  Coquelin  was  a  firm  devotee  of  Jea 
Jacques,  and  very  possibly  applied  some  of  b 
precepts  to  my  own  little  person.  But  of  h 
own  nature  Coquelin  was  incapable  of  an; 
thing  that  was  not  wise  and  gentle,  and  he  hs 
no  need  to  learn  humanity  in  books.  He  wa 
nevertheless,  a  great  reader,  and  w7hen  he  ha 
not  a  volume  in  his  hand  he  was  sure  to  ha^ 
two  in  his  pockets.  He  had  half  a  dozen  litt 
copies  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  bound  i 
yellow  parchment,  which,  as  he  said,  with 
second  shirt  and  a  pair  of  white  stockings,  coi 
stituted  his  whole  library.  He  had  carrie 
these  books  to  America,  and  read  them  in  tt 
wilderness,  and  by  the  light  of  camp-fires,  an 
in  crowrded,  steaming  barracks  in  winter-qua] 
ters.  He  had  a  passion  for  Virgil.  M.  Scai 
ron  was  very  soon  dismissed  to  the  cupboan 
among  the  dice-boxes  and  the  old  packs  c 
cards,  and  I  was  confined  for  the  time  to  Vh 
gil  and  Ovid  and  Plutarch,  all  of  which,  wit 
the  stimulus  of  Coquelin's  own  delight,  I  foun 
very  good  reading.  But  better  than  any  c 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  25 

e  stories  I  read  were  those  stories  of  his  wan- 
rings,  and  his  odd  companions  and  encoun- 
rs,  and  charming  tales  of  pure  fantasy, 
rich,  with  the  best  grace  in  the  world,  he 
)uld  recite  by  the  hour.  We  took  long  walks, 
d  he  told  me  the  names  of  the  flowers  and 
e  various  styles  of  the  stars,  and  I  remember 
at  I  often  had  no  small  trouble  to  keep  them 
stinct.  He  wrote  a  very  bad  hand,  but  he 
ide  very  pretty  drawings  of  the  subjects  then 
vogue, — nymphs  and  heroes  and  shepherds 
d  pastoral  scenes.  I  used  to  fancy  that  his 
lowledge  and  skill  wrere  inexhaustible,  and  I 
stered  him  so  for  entertainment  that  I  cer- 
inly  proved  that  there  were  no  limits  to  his 
tience. 

When  he  first  came  to  us  he  looked  hag- 
rd  and  thin  and  weary ;  but  before  the  month 
is  out,  he  had  acquired  a  comfortable  ro- 
ndity  of  person,  and  something  of  the  sleek 
d  polished  look  which  befits  the  governor 
a  gentleman's  son.  And  yet  he  never  lost 
certain  gravity  and  reserve  of  demeanor 


26  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

which  was  nearly  akin  to  a  mild  melancholy. 
With  me,  half  the  time,  he  was  of  course  in 
tolerably  bored,  and  he  must  have  had  hard 
work  to  keep  from  yawning  in  my  face,— 
which,  as  he  knew  I  knew,  would  have  been  an 
unwarrantable  liberty.  At  table,  with  my  par 
ents,  he  seemed  to  be  constantly  observing  him 
self  and  inwardly  regulating  his  words  and 
gestures.  The  simple  truth,  I  take  it,  was  that 
he  had  never  sat  at  a  gentleman's  table,  and 
although  he  must  have  known  himself  inca 
pable  of  a  real  breach  of  civility, — essentially 
delicate  as  he  was  in  his  feelings, — he  was  too 
proud  to  run  the  risk  of  violating  etiquette. 
My  poor  mother  was  a  great  stickler  for  cere 
mony,  and  she  would  have  had  her  majordomo 
to  lift  the  covers,  even  if  she  had  had  nothing 
to  put  into  the  dishes.  I  remember  a  cruel 
rebuke  she  bestowed  upon  Coquelin,  shortly 
after  his  arrival.  She  could  never  be  brought 
to  forget  that  he  had  been  picked  up,  as  she 
said,  on  the  roads.  At  dinner  one  day,  in  the 
absence  of  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  who  was  indis- 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  27 

posed,  he  inadvertently  occupied  her  seat,  tak 
ing  me  as  a  vis-a-vis  instead  of  a  neighbor. 
Shortly  afterwards,  coming  to  offer  wine  to 
my  mother,  he  received  for  all  response  a  stare 
so  blank,  cold,  and  insolent  as  to  leave  no 
doubt  of  her  estimate  of  his  presumption.  In 
my  mother's  simple  philosophy,  Mile,  de  Ber- 
gerac's  seat  could  be  decently  occupied  only 
by  hersejf,  and  in  default  of  her  presence 
should  remain  conspicuously  and  sacredly  va 
cant.  Dinner  at  Bergerac  was  at  best,  indeed, 
a  cold  and  dismal  ceremony.  I  see  it  now,— 
the  great  dining-room,  with  its  high  windows 
and  their  faded  curtains,  and  the  tiles  upon  the 
floor,  and  the  immense  wainscots,  and  the  great 
white  marble  chimney-piece,  reaching  to  the 
ceiling, — a  triumph  of  delicate  carving, — and 
the  panels  above  the  doors,  with  their  galant 
mythological  paintings.  All  this  had  been  the 
work  of  my  grandfather,  during  the  Regency, 
who  had  undertaken  to  renovate  and  beautify 
the  chateau ;  but  his  funds  had  suddenly  given 
out,  and  we  could  boast  but  a  desultory  ele- 


28  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

gance.  Such  talk  as  passed  at  table  was  be 
tween  my  mother  and  the  Baron,  and  consisted 
for  the  most  part  of  a  series  of  insidious  at 
tempts  on  my  mother's  part  to  extort  infor 
mation  which  the  latter  had  no  desire,  or  at 
least  no  faculty,  to  impart.  My  father  was 
constitutionally  taciturn  and  apathetic,  and  he 
invariably  made  an  end  of  my  mother's  inter 
rogation  by  proclaiming  that  he  hated  gossip. 
He  liked  to  take  his  pleasure  and  have  done 
with  it,  or  at  best,  to  ruminate  his  substan 
tial  joys  within  the  conservative  recesses  of 
his  capacious  breast.  The  Baronne's  inquisi 
tive  tongue  was  like  a  lambent  flame,  flicker 
ing  over  the  sides  of  a  rock.  She  had  a  pas 
sion  for  the  world,  and  seclusion  had  only 
sharpened  the  edge  of  her  curiosity.  She  lived 
on  old  memories — shabby,  tarnished  bits  of 
intellectual  finery — and  vagrant  rumors,  anec 
dotes,  and  scandals. 

Once  in  a  while,  however,  her  curiosity  held 
high  revel ;  for  once  a  week  we  had  the  Vicomte 
de  Treuil  to  dine  with  us.  This  gentleman  was, 


GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC  29 

although  several  years  my  father's  junior,  his 
most  intimate  friend  and  the  only  constant  vis 
itor  at  Bergerac.  He  brought  with  him  a  sort 
of  intoxicating  perfume  of  the  great  world, 
which  I  myself  was  not  too  young  to  feel.  He 
had  a  marvellous  fluency  of  talk;  he  was  po 
lite  and  elegant ;  and  he  was  constantly  getting 
letters  from  Paris,  books,  newspapers,  and 
prints,  and  copies  of  the  new  songs.  When 
he  dined  at  Bergerac,  my  mother  used  to  rustle 
away  from  table,  kissing  her  hand  to  him,  and 
actually  light-headed  from  her  deep  potations 
of  gossip.  His  conversation  was  a  constant 
popping  of  corks.  My  father  and  the  Vicomte, 
as  I  have  said,  were  firm  friends, — the  firmer 
for  the  great  diversity  of  their  characters.  M. 
de  Bergerac  was  dark,  grave,  and  taciturn, 
with  a  deep,  sonorous  voice.  He  had  in  his 
nature  a  touch  of  melancholy,  and,  in  default 
of  piety,  a  broad  vein  of  superstition.  The 
foundations  of  his  soul,  moreover,  I  am  satis 
fied,  in  spite  of  the  somewhat  ponderous  super 
structure,  were  laid  in  a  soil  of  rich  tenderness 


30  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

and  pity.  Gaston  de  Treuil  was  of  a  wholly 
different  temper.  He  was  short  and  slight, 
without  any  color,  and  with  eyes  as  blue  and 
lustrous  as  sapphires.  He  was  so  careless  and 
gracious  and  mirthful,  that  to  an  unenlight 
ened  fancy  he  seemed  the  model  of  a  joyous, 
reckless,  gallant,  impenitent  veneur.  But  it 
sometimes  struck  me  that,  as  he  revolved  an 
idea  in  his  mind,  it  produced  a  certain  flinty 
ring,  which  suggested  that  his  nature  was  built, 
as  it  were,  on  rock,  and  that  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  was  hard.  Young  as  he  was,  besides, 
he  had  a  tired,  jaded,  exhausted  look,  which 
told  of  his  having  played  high  at  the  game  of 
life,  and,  very  possibly,  lost.  In  fact,  it  was 
notorious  that  M.  de  Treuil  had  run  through 
his  property,  and  that  his  actual  business  in 
our  neighborhood  was  to  repair  the  breach  in 
his  fortunes  by  constant  attendance  on  a 
wealthy  kinsman,  who  occupied  an  adjacent 
chateau,  and  who  was  dying  of  age  and 
his  infirmities.  But  while  I  thus  hint  at  the 
existence  in  his  composition  of  these  few  base 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  31 

particles,  I  should  be  sorry  to  represent  him 
as  substantially  less  fair  and  clear  and  lustrous 
than  he  appeared  to  be.  He  possessed  an  irre 
sistible  charm,  and  that  of  itself  is  a  virtue. 
I  feel  sure,  moreover,  that  my  father  would 
never  have  reconciled  himself  to  a  real  scanti 
ness  of  masculine  worth.  The  Vicomte  en 
joyed,  I  fancy,  the  generous  energy  of  my  fa 
ther's  good-fellowship,  and  the  Baron's  healthy 
senses  were  flattered  by  the  exquisite  perfume 
of  the  other's  infallible  savoir-i'ivre.  I  offer 
a  hundred  apologies,  at  any  rate,  to  the 
Vicomte's  luminous  shade,  that  I  should  have 
ventured  to  cast  a  dingy  slur  upon  his  name. 
History  has  commemorated  it.  He  perished 
on  the  scaffold,  and  showed  that  he  knew  how 
to  die  as  well  as  to  live.  He  was  the  last  relic 
of  the  lily-handed  youth  of  the  bon  temps;  and 
as  he  looks  at  me  out  of  the  poignant  sadness 
of  the  past,  with  a  reproachful  glitter  in  his 
cold  blue  eyes,  and  a  scornful  smile  on  his  fine 
lips,  I  feel  that,  elegant  and  silent  as  he  is, 
he  has  the  last  word  in  our  dispute.  I  shall 


32  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

think  of  him  henceforth  as  he  appeared  one 
night,  or  rather  one  morning,  when  he  came 
home  from  a  ball  with  my  father,  who  had 
brought  him  to  Bergerac  to  sleep.  I  had  my 
bed  in  a  closet  out  of  my  mother's  room,  where 
I  lay  in  a  most  unwholesome  fashion  among 
her  old  gowns  and  hoops  and  cosmetics.  My 
mother  slept  little;  she  passed  the  night  in  her 
dressing-gown,  bolstered  up  in  her  bed,  read 
ing  novels.  The  two  gentlemen  came  in  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  made  their  way  up 
to  the  Baronne's  little  sitting-room,  next  to  her 
chamber.  I  suppose  they  were  highly  exhila 
rated,  for  they  made  a  great  noise  of  talking 
and  laughing,  and  my  father  began  to  knock 
at  the  chamber  door.  He  called  out  that  he 
had  M.  de  Treuil,  and  that  they  were  cold  and 
hungry.  The  Baronne  said  that  she  had  a  fire 
and  they  might  come  in.  She  was  glad  enough, 
poor  lady,  to  get  news  of  the  ball,  and  to  catch 
their  impressions  before  they  had  been  dulled 
by  sleep.  So  they  came  in  and  sat  by  the  fire, 
and  M.  de  Treuil  looked  for  some  wine  and 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  33 

some  little  cakes  where  my  mother  told  him. 
I  was  wide  awake  and  heard  it  all.  I  heard 
my  mother  protesting  and  crying  out,  and  the 
Vicomte  laughing,  when  he  looked  into  the 
wrong  place;  and  I  am  afraid  that  in  my 
mother's  room  there  were  a  great  many  wrong 
places.  Before  long,  in  my  little  stuffy,  dark 
closet,  I  began  to  feel  hungry  too;  whereupon 
I  got  out  of  bed  and  ventured  forth  into  the 
room.  I  remember  the  whole  picture,  as  one 
remembers  isolated  scenes  of  childhood:  my 
mother's  bed,  with  its  great  curtains  half 
drawn  back  at  the  side,  and  her  little  eager  face 
and  dark  eyes  peeping  out  of  the  recess;  then 
the  two  men  at  the  fire, — my  father  with  his 
hat  on,  sitting  and  looking  drowsily  into  the 
flames,  and  the  Vicomte  standing  before  the 
hearth,  talking,  laughing,  and  gesticulating, 
with  the  candlestick  in  one  hand  and  a  glass 
of  wine  in  the  other, — dropping  the  wax  on 
one  side  and  the  wine  on  the  other.  He  was 
dressed  from  head  to  foot  in  white  velvet  and 
white  silk,  with  embroideries  of  silver,  and  an 


34  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

immense  jabot.  He  was  very  pale,  and  he 
looked  lighter  and  slighter  and  wittier  and 
more  elegant  than  ever.  He  had  a  weak  voice, 
and  when  he  laughed,  after  one  feeble  little 
spasm,  it  went  off  into  nothing,  and  you  only 
knew  he  was  laughing  by  his  nodding  his  head 
and  lifting  his  eyebrows  and  showing  his  hand 
some  teeth.  My  father  was  in  crimson  velvet, 
with  tarnished  gold  facings.  My  mother  bade 
me  get  back  into  bed,  but  my  father  took  me 
on  his  knees  and  held  out  my  bare  feet  to  the 
fire.  In  a  little  while,  from  the  influence  of 
the  heat,  he  fell  asleep  in  his  chair,  and  I  sat 
in  my  place  and  watched  M.  de  Treuil  as  he 
stood  in  the  firelight  drinking  his  wine  and 
telling  stories  to  my  mother,  until  at  last  I  too 
relapsed  into  the  innocence  of  slumber.  They 
wrere  very  good  friends,  the  Vicomte  and  my 
mother.  He  admired  the  turn  of  her  mind.  I 
remember  his  telling  me  several  years  later,  at 
the  time  of  her  death,  when  I  was  old  enough 
to  understand  him,  that  she  was  a  very  brave, 
keen  little  woman,  and  that  in  her  musty  soli- 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  35 

tude  of  Bergerac  she  said  a  great  many  more 
good  things  than  the  world  ever  heard  of. 

During  the  winter  which  preceded  Coque- 
lin's  arrival,  M.  de  Treuil  used  to  show  himself 
at  Bergerac  in  a  friendly  manner;  but  about  a 
month  before  this  event,  his  visits  became  more 
frequent  and  assumed  a  special  import  and  mo 
tive.  In  a  word,  my  father  and  his  friend  be 
tween  them  had  conceived  it  to  be  a  fine  thing 
that  the  latter  should  marry  Mile,  de  Bergerac. 
Neither  from  his  own  nor  from  his  friend's 
point  of  view  was  Gaston  de  Treuil  a  marry 
ing  man  or  a  desirable  parti.  He  was  too  fond 
of  pleasure  to  conciliate  a  rich  wife,  and  too 
poor  to  support  a  penniless  one.  But  I  fancy 
that  my  father  was  of  the  opinion  that  if  the 
Vicomte  came  into  his  kinsman's  property,  the 
best  way  to  insure  the  preservation  of  it,  and 
to  attach  him  to  his  duties  and  responsibilities, 
would  be  to  unite  him  to  an  amiable  girl,  who 
might  remind  him  of  the  beauty  of  a  domestic 
life  and  lend  him  courage  to  mend  his  ways. 


36  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

As  far  as  the  Vicomte  was  concerned,  this  was 
assuredly  a  benevolent  scheme,  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  it  made  small  account  of  the  young 
girl's  own  happiness.  M.  de  Treuil  was  sup 
posed,  in  the  matter  of  women,  to  have  known 
everything  that  can  be  known,  and  to  be  as 
blase  with  regard  to  their  charms  as  he  was 
proof  against  their  influence.  And,  in  fact, 
his  manner  of  dealing  with  women,  and  of  dis 
cussing  them,  indicated  a  profound  disenchant 
ment, — no  bravado  of  contempt,  no  affectation 
of  cynicism,  but  a  cold,  civil,  absolute  lassitude. 
A  simply  charming  woman,  therefore,  would 
never  have  served  the  purpose  of  my  father's 
theory.  A  very  sound  and  liberal  instinct  led 
him  to  direct  his  thoughts  to  his  sister.  There 
were,  of  course,  various  auxiliary  reasons  for 
such  disposal  of  Mile,  de  Bergerac's  hand.  She 
was  now  a  woman  grown,  and  she  had  as  yet 
received  no  decent  proposals.  She  had  no  mar 
riage  portion  of  her  own,  and  my  father  had 
no  means  to  endow  her.  Her  beauty,  more 
over,  could  hardly  be  called  a  dowry.  It  was 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  37 

without  those  vulgar  allurements  which,  for 
many  a  poor  girl,  replace  the  glitter  of  cash. 
If  within  a  very  few  years  more  she  had  not 
succeeded  in  establishing  herself  creditably  in 
the  world,  nothing  would  be  left  for  her  but  to 
withdraw  from  it,  and  to  pledge  her  virgin 
faith  to  the  chilly  sanctity  of  a  cloister.  I  was 
destined  in  the  course  of  time  to  assume  the 
lordship  and  the  slender  revenues  of  Bergerac, 
and  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  I  should  be 
burdened  on  the  very  threshold  of  life  with  the 
maintenance  of  a  dowerless  maiden  aunt.  A 
marriage  with  M.  de  Treuil  would  be  in  all 
senses  a  creditable  match,  and,  in  the  event  of 
his  becoming  his  kinsman's  legatee,  a  thor 
oughly  comfortable  one. 

It  was  some  time  before  the  color  of  my  fa 
ther's  intentions,  and  the  milder  hue  of  the 
Vicomte's  acquiescence,  began  to  show  in  our 
common  daylight.  It  is  not  the  custom,  as  you 
know,  in  our  excellent  France,  to  admit  a  lover 
on  probation.  He  is  expected  to  make  up  his 
mind  on  a  view  of  the  young  lady's  endow- 


38  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

merits,  and  to  content  himself  before  marriage 
with  the  bare  cognition  of  her  face.  It  is  not 
thought  decent  (and  there  is  certainly  reason 
in  it)  that  he  should  dally  with  his  draught, 
and  hold  it  to  the  light,  and  let  the  sun  play 
through  it,  before  carrying  it  to  his  lips.  It 
was  only  on  the  ground  of  my  father's  warm 
good-will  to  Gaston  de  Treuil,  and  the  latter's 
affectionate  respect  for  the  Baron,  that  the 
Vicomte  was  allowed  to  appear  as  a  lover,  be 
fore  making  his  proposals  in  form.  M.  de 
Treuil,  in  fact,  proceeded  gradually,  and  made 
his  approaches  from  a  great  distance.  It  was 
not  for  several  weeks,  therefore,  that  Mile,  de 
Eergerac  became  aware  of  them.  And  now, 
as  this  dear  young  girl  steps  into  my  story, 
where,  I  ask  you,  shall  I  find  words  to  describe 
the  broad  loveliness  of  her  person,  to  hint  at 
the  perfect  beauty  of  her  mind,  to  suggest  the 
sweet  mystery  of  her  first  suspicion  of  being 
sought,  from  afar,  in  marriage?  Not  in  my 
fancy,  surely;  for  there  I  should  disinter  the 
flimsy  elements  and  tarnished  properties  of  a 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  39 

superannuated  comic  opera.  My  taste,  my  son, 
was  formed  once  for  all  fifty  years  ago.  But 
if  I  wish  to  call  up  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  I  must 
turn  to  my  earliest  memories,  and  delve  in  the 
sweet-smelling  virgin  soil  of  my  heart.  For 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  is  no  misty  sylphid  nor  ro 
mantic  moonlit  nymph.  She  rises  before  me 
now,  glowing  with  life,  with  the  sound  of  her 
voice  just  dying  in  the  air, — the  more  living 
for  the  mark  of  her  crimson  death-stain. 

There  was  every  good  reason  why  her  dawn 
ing  consciousness  of  M.  de  Treuil's  attentions 
- — although  these  were  little  more  than  pro 
jected  as  yet — should  have  produced  a  serious 
tremor  in  her  heart.  It  was  not  that  she  was 
aught  of  a  coquette;  I  honestly  believe  that 
there  was  no  latent  coquetry  in  her  nature.  At 
all  events,  whatever  she  might  have  become 
after  knowing  M.  de  Treuil,  she  was  no  co 
quette  to  speak  of  in  her  ignorance.  Her  igno 
rance  of  men,  in  truth,  was  great.  For  the 
Vicomte  himself,  she  had  as  yet  known  him 
only  distantly,  formally,  as  a  gentleman  of 


40  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

rank  and  fashion;  and  for  others  of  his  qual 
ity,  she  had  seen  but  a  small  number,  and  not 
seen  them  intimately.  These  few  words  suf 
fice  to  indicate  that  my  aunt  led  a  life  of  un 
broken  monotony.  Once  a  year  she  spent  six 
weeks  with  certain  ladies  of  the  Visitation,  in 
whose  convent  she  had  received  her  education, 
and  of  whom  she  continued  to  be  very  fond. 
Half  a  dozen  times  in  the  twelvemonth  she 
went  to  a  hall,  under  convoy  of  some  haply  un 
grudging  chatelaine.  Two  or  three  times  a 
month,  she  received  a  visit  at  Bergerac.  The 
rest  of  the  time  she  paced,  with  the  grace  of 
an  angel  and  the  patience  of  a  woman,  the 
dreary  corridors  and  unclipt  garden  walks  of 
Bergerac.  The  discovery,  then,  that  the  bril 
liant  Vicomte  de  Treuil  was  likely  to  make  a 
proposal  for  her  hand  was  an  event  of  no  small 
importance.  With  precisely  what  feelings  she 
awaited  its  coming,  I  am  unable  to  tell;  but  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  even  at  this 
moment  (that  is,  in  less  than  a  month  after 
my  tutor's  arrival)  her  feelings  were  strongly 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  41 

modified    by    her    acquaintance    with    Pierre 
Coquelin. 

The  word  "acquaintance"  perhaps  exagger 
ates  Mile,  de  Bergerac's  relation  to  this  excel 
lent  young  man.  Twice  a  day  she  sat  facing 
him  at  table,  and  half  a  dozen  times  a  week 
she  met  him  on  the  staircase,  in  the  saloon,  or 
in  the  park.  Coquelin  had  been  accommodated 
with  an  apartment  in  a  small  untenanted  pa 
vilion,  within  the  enclosure  of  our  domain,  and 
except  at  meals,  and  when  his  presence  was  es 
pecially  requested  at  the  chateau,  he  confined 
himself  to  his  own  precinct.  It  was  there, 
morning  and  evening,  that  I  took  my  lesson. 
It  was  impossible,  therefore,  that  an  intimacy 
should  have  arisen  between  these  two  young 
persons,  equally  separated  as  they  were  by  ma 
terial  and  conventional  barriers.  Nevertheless, 
as  the  sequel  proved,  Coquelin  must,  by  his 
mere  presence,  have  begun  very  soon  to  ex 
ert  a  subtle  action  on  Mile,  de  Bergerac's 
thoughts.  As  for  the  young  girl's  influence  on 
Coquelin,  it  is  my  belief  that  he  fell  in  love  with 


42  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

her  the  very  first  moment  he  beheld  her, — that 
morning  when  he  trudged  wearily  up  our  ave 
nue.  I  need  certainly  make  no  apology  for 
the  poor  fellow's  audacity.  You  tell  me  that 
you  fell  in  love  at  first  sight  with  my  aunt's 
portrait ;  you  will  readily  excuse  the  poor  youth 
for  having  been  smitten  with  the  original.  It 
is  less  logical  perhaps,  but  it  is  certainly  no  less 
natural,  that  Mile,  de  Bergerac  should  have 
ventured  to  think  of  my  governor  as  a  decided 
ly  interesting  fellow.  She  saw  so  few  men  that 
one  the  more  or  the  less  made  a  very  great  dif 
ference.  Coquelin's  importance,  moreover,  was 
increased  rather  than  diminished  by  the  fact 
that,  as  I  may  say,  he  was  a  son  of  the  soil. 
Marked  as  he  was,  in  aspect  and  utterance, 
with  the  genuine  plebeian  stamp,  he  opened  a 
way  for  the  girl's  fancy  into  a  vague,  unknown 
world.  He  stirred  her  imagination,  I  conceive, 
in  very  much  the  same  way  as  such  a  man  as 
Gaston  de  Treuil  would  have  stirred — actually 
had  stirred,  of  course — the  grosser  sensibili 
ties  of  many  a  little  bourgeoise.  Mile,  de 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  43 

Bergerac  was  so  thoroughly  at  peace  with  the 
consequences  of  her  social  position,  so  little 
inclined  to  derogate  in  act  or  in  thought  from 
the  perfect  dignity  of  her  birth,  that  with  the 
best  conscience  in  the  world,  she  entertained, 
as  they  came,  the  feelings  provoked  by  Coque- 
lin's  manly  virtues  and  graces.  She  had  been 
educated  in  the  faith  that  noblesse  oblige,  and 
she  had  seen  none  but  gentlefolks  and  peasants. 
I  think  that  she  felt  a  vague,  unavowed  curi 
osity  to  see  what  sort  of  a  figure  you  might 
make  when  you  were  under  no  obligations  to 
nobleness.  I  think,  finally,  that  unconsciously 
and  in  the  interest  simply  of  her  unsubstantial 
dreams,  (for  in  those  long  summer  days  at 
Bergerac,  without  finery,  without  visits,  music, 
or  books,  or  anything  that  a  well-to-do  grocer's 
daughter  enjoys  at  the  present  day,  she  must, 
unless  she  was  a  far  greater  simpleton  than  I 
wish  you  to  suppose,  have  spun  a  thousand 
airy,  idle  visions,)  she  contrasted  Pierre  Coque- 
lin  with  the  Vicomte  de  Treuil.  I  protest  that 
I  don't  see  how  Coquelin  bore  the  contrast.  I 


44  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

frankly  admit  that,  in  her  place,  I  would  have 
given  all  my  admiration  to  the  Vicomte.  At 
all  events,  the  chief  result  of  any  such  compari 
son  must  have  been  to  show  how,  in  spite  of 
real  trials  and  troubles,  Coquelin  had  retained 
a  certain  masculine  freshness  and  elasticity, 
and  how,  without  any  sorrows  but  those  of  his 
own  wanton  making,  the  Vicomte  had  utterly 
rubbed  off  his  primal  bloom  of  manhood. 
There  was  that  about  Gaston  de  Treuil  that 
reminded  you  of  an  actor  by  daylight.  His  lit 
tle  row  of  foot-lights  had  burned  itself  out. 
But  this  is  assuredly  a  more  pedantic  view  of 
the  case  than  any  that  Mile,  de  Bergerac  was 
capable  of  taking.  The  Vicomte  had  but  to 
learn  his  part  and  declaim  it,  and  the  illusion 
was  complete. 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  may  really  have  been  a 
great  simpleton,  and  my  theory  of  her  feelings 
—vague  and  imperfect  as  it  is — may  be  put 
together  quite  after  the  fact.  But  I  see  you 
protest ;  you  glance  at  the  picture ;  you  frown. 
C'est  loon;  give  me  your  hand.  She  received 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  45 

the  Vicomte's  gallantries,  then,  with  a  mod 
est,  conscious  dignity,  and  courtesied  to  ex 
actly  the  proper  depth  when  he  made  her  one 
of  his  inimitable  bows. 

One  evening — it  was,  I  think,  about  ten  days 
after  Coquelin's  arrival — she  was  sitting  read 
ing  to  my  mother,  who  was  ill  in  bed.  The 
Vicomte  had  been  dining  with  us,  and  after 
dinner  we  had  gone  into  the  drawing-room. 
At  the  drawing-room  door  Coquelin  had  made 
his  bow  to  my  father,  and  carried  me  off  to  his 
own  apartment.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  and  the 
two  gentlemen  had  gone  into  the  drawing- 
room  together.  At  dusk  I  had  come  back  to 
the  chateau,  and,  going  up  to  my  mother,  had 
found  her  in  company  with  her  sister-in-law. 
In  a  few  moments  my  father  came  in,  looking 
stern  and  black. 

"Sister,"  he  cried,  "why  did  you  leave  us 
alone  in  the  drawing-room?  Didn't  you  see  I 
wanted  you  to  stay?" 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  laid  down  her  book  and 
looked  at  her  brother  before  answering.  "I 


46  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

had  to  come  to  my  sister,"  she  said:  "I  couldn't 
leave  her  alone." 

My  mother,  I'm  sorry  to  say,  was  not  al 
ways  just  to  my  aunt.  She  used  to  lose  pa 
tience  with  her  sister's  want  of  coquetry,  of 
ambition,  of  desire  to  make  much  of  herself. 
She  divined  wherein  my  aunt  had  offended. 
"You're  very  devoted  to  your  sister,  sud 
denly,"  she  said.  "There  are  duties  and  du 
ties,  mademoiselle.  I'm  very  much  obliged 
to  you  for  reading  to  me.  You  can  put  down 
the  book." 

"The  Vicomte  swore  very  hard  when  you 
went  out,"  my  father  went  on. 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  laid  aside  her  book. 
"Dear  me!"  she  said,  "if  he  was  going  to  swear, 
it's  very  well  I  went." 

"Are  you  afraid  of  the  Vicomte?"  said  my 
mother.  "You're  twenty-two  years  old. 
You're  not  a  little  girl." 

"Is  she  twenty- two?"  cried  my  father.  "I 
told  him  she  was  twenty-one." 

"Frankly,  brother,"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac, 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  47 

"what  does  he  want?  Does  he  want  to  marry 
me?" 

My  father  stared  a  moment.  "Pardieu!" 
he  cried. 

"She  looks  as  if  she  didn't  believe  it,"  said 
my  mother.  "Pray,  did  you  ever  ask  him?" 

"No,  madam;  did  you?  You  are  very  kind." 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  was  excited;  her  cheeks 
flushed. 

"In  the  course  of  time,"  said  my  father, 
gravely,  "the  Vicomte  proposes  to  demand 
your  hand." 

"What  is  he  waiting  for?"  asked  Mile,  de 
Bergerac,  simply. 

ffFi  done,  mademoiselle!"  cried  my  mother. 

"He  is  waiting  for  M.  de  Sorbieres  to  die," 
said  I,  who  had  got  this  bit  of  news  from  my 
mother's  wraiting-woman. 

My  father  stared  at  me,  half  angrily;  and 
then, — "He  expects  to  inherit,"  he  said,  boldly. 
"It's  a  very  fine  property." 

"He  would  have  done  better,  it  seems  to 
me,"  rejoined  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  after  a  pause, 


48  GABRIKLLE    DE    BERGERAC 

"to  wait  till  he  had  actually  come  into  posses 
sion  of  it." 

"M.  de  Sorbieres,"  cried  my  father,  "has 
given  him  his  word  a  dozen  times  over.  Be 
sides,  the  Vicomte  loves  you." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  blushed,  with  a  little 
smile,  and  as  she  did  so  her  eyes  fell  on  mine. 
I  was  standing  gazing  at  her  as  a  child  gazes 
at  a  familiar  friend  who  is  presented  to  him  in 
a  new  light.  She  put  out  her  hand  and  drew 
me  towards  her.  "The  truth  comes  out  of  the 
mouths  of  children,"  she  said.  "Chevalier, 
does  he  love  me?" 

"Stuff!"  cried  the  Baronne;  "one  doesn't 
speak  to  children  of  such  things.  A  young 
girl  should  believe  what  she's  told.  I  believed 
my  mother  when  she  told  me  that  your  brother 
loved  me.  He  didn't,  but  I  believed  it,  and  as 
far  as  I  know  I'm  none  the  worse  for  it." 

For  ten  days  after  this  I  heard  nothing  more 
of  Mile,  de  Bergerac's  marriage,  and  I  sup 
pose  that,  childlike,  I  ceased  to  think  of  what 
I  had  already  heard.  One  evening,  about  mid- 


GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC  49 

summer,  M.  de  Treuil  came  over  to  supper, 
and  announced  that  he  was  about  to  set  out 
in  company  with  poor  M.  de  Sorbieres  for  some 
mineral  springs  in  the  South,  by  the  use  of 
which  the  latter  hoped  to  prolong  his  life. 

I  remember  that,  while  we  sat  at  table, 
Coquelin  was  appealed  to  as  an  authority  upon 
some  topic  broached  by  the  Vicomte,  on  which 
he  found  himself  at  variance  with  my  father. 
It  was  the  first  time,  I  fancy,  that  he  had  been 
so  honored  and  that  his  opinions  had  been 
deemed  worth  hearing.  The  point  under  dis 
cussion  must  have  related  to  the  history  of  the 
American  War,  for  Coquelin  spoke  with  the 
firmness  and  fulness  warranted  by  personal 
knowledge.  I  fancy  that  he  was  a  little  fright 
ened  by  the  sound  of  his  own  voice,  but  he  ac 
quitted  himself  with  perfect  good  grace  and 
success.  We  all  sat  attentive ;  my  mother  even 
staring  a  little,  surprised  to  find  in  a  beggarly 
pedagogue  a  perfect  beau  diseur.  My  father, 
as  became  so  great  a  gentleman,  knew  by  a  cer 
tain  rough  instinct  when  a  man  had  something 


50  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

amusing  to  say.  He  leaned  back,  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  listening  and  paying  the 
poor  fellow  the  tribute  of  a  half-puzzled  frown. 
The  Vicomte,  like  a  man  of  taste,  was  charmed. 
He  told  stories  himself,  he  was  a  good  judge. 

After  supper  we  went  out  on  the  terrace. 
It  was  a  perfect  summer  night,  neither  too 
warm  nor  too  cool.  There  was  no  moon,  but 
the  stars  flung  down  their  languid  light,  and 
the  earth,  with  its  great  dark  masses  of  vege 
tation  and  the  gently  swaying  tree-tops, 
seemed  to  answer  back  in  a  thousand  vague 
perfumes.  Somewhere,  close  at  hand,  out  of 
an  enchanted  tree,  a  nightingale  raved  and 
carolled  in  delirious  music.  We  had  the  good 
taste  to  listen  in  silence.  My  mother  sat  down 
on  a  bench  against  the  house,  and  put  out  her 
hand  and  made  my  father  sit  beside  her.  Mile, 
de  Bergerac  strolled  to  the  edge  of  the  terrace, 
and  leaned  against  the  balustrade,  whither  M. 
de  Treuil  soon  followed  her.  She  stood  mo 
tionless,  with  her  head  raised,  intent  upon  the 
music.  The  Vicomte  seated  himself  upon  the 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  51 

parapet,  with  his  face  towards  her  and  his  arms 
folded.  He  may  perhaps  have  been  talking, 
under  cover  of  the  nightingale.  Coquelin 
seated  himself  near  the  other  end  of  the  ter 
race,  and  drew  me  between  his  knees.  At  last 
the  nightingale  ceased.  Coquelin  got  up,  and 
bade  good  night  to  the  company,  and  made  his 
wray  across  the  park  to  his  lodge.  I  went  over 
to  my  aunt  and  the  Vicomte. 

"M.  Coquelin  is  a  clever  man,"  said  the 
Vicomte,  as  he  disappeared  down  the  avenue. 
"He  spoke  very  well  this  evening." 

"He  never  spoke  so  much  before,"  said  I. 
"He's  very  shy." 

"I  think,"  said  my  aunt,  "he's  a  little  proud." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  the  Vicomte, 
"how  a  man  with  any  pride  can  put  up  with 
the  place  of  a  tutor.  I  had  rather  dig  in  the 
fields." 

"The  Chevalier  is  much  obliged  to  you,"  said 
my  aunt,  laughing.  "In  fact,  M.  Coquelin  has 
to  dig  a  little,  hasn't  he,  Chevalier?" 


52  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

"Not  at  all,"  said  I.  "But  he  keeps  some 
plants  in  pots." 

At  this  my  aunt  and  the  Vicomte  began  to 
laugh.  "He  keeps  one  precious  plant,"  cried 
my  aunt,  tapping  my  face  with  her  fan. 

At  this  moment  my  mother  called  me  away. 
"He  makes  them  laugh,"  I  heard  her  say  to  my 
father,  as  I  went  to  her. 

"She  had  better  laugh  about  it  than  cry," 
said  my  father. 

Before  long,  Mile,  de  Bergerac  and  her  com 
panion  came  back  toward  the  house. 

"M.  le  Vicomte,  brother,"  said  my  aunt,  "in 
vites  me  to  go  down  and  walk  in  the  park. 
May  I  accept?" 

"By  all  means,"  said  my  father.  "You  may 
go  with  the  Vicomte  as  you  would  go  with  me." 

"Ah!"  said  the  Vicomte. 

"Come  then,  Chevalier,"  said  my  aunt.  "In 
my  turn,  I  invite  you." 

"My  son,"  said  the  Baronne,  "I  forbid  you." 

"But  my  brother  says,"  rejoined  Mile,  de 
Bergerac,  "that  I  may  go  wdth  M.  de  Treuil  as 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  53 

I  would  go  with  himself.  He  would  not  object 
to  my  taking  my  nephew."  And  she  put  out 
her  hand. 

"One  would  think,"  said  my  mother,  "that 
you  were  setting  out  for  Siberia." 

"For  Siberia!"  cried  the  Vicomte,  laughing; 
"Ono!" 

I  paused,  undecided.  But  my  father  gave 
me  a  push.  "After  all,"  he  said,  "it's  better." 

When  I  overtook  my  aunt  and  her  lover,  the 
latter,  losing  no  time,  appeared  to  have  come 
quite  to  the  point. 

"Your  brother  tells  me,  mademoiselle,"  he 
had  begun,  "that  he  has  spoken  to  you." 

The  young  girl  was  silent. 

"You  may  be  indifferent,"  pursued  the  Vi 
comte,  "but  I  can't  believe  you're  ignorant." 

"My  brother  has  spoken  to  me,"  said  Mile, 
de  Bergerac  at  last,  with  an  apparent  effort, — 
"my  brother  has  spoken  to  me  of  his  project." 

"I'm  very  glad  he  seemed  to  you  to  have  es 
poused  my  cause  so  warmly  that  you  call  it  his 
own.  I  did  my  best  to  convince  him  that  I  pos- 


54  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

sess  what  a  person  of  your  merit  is  entitled  to 
exact  of  the  man  who  asks  her  hand.  In  doing 
so,  I  almost  convinced  myself.  The  point  is 
now  to  convince  you." 

"I  listen." 

"You  admit,  then,  fehat  your  mind  is  not 
made  up  in  advance  against  me." 

"Mon  Dicu!"  cried  my  aunt,  with  some  em 
phasis,  "a  poor  girl  like  me  doesn't  make  up 
her  mind.  You  frighten  me,  Vicomte.  This  is 
a  serious  question.  I  have  the  misfortune  to 
have  no  mother.  I  can  only  pray  God.  But 
prayer  helps  me  not  to  choose,  but  only  to  be 
resigned." 

'Tray  often,  then,  mademoiselle.  I'm  not 
an  arrogant  lover,  and  since  I  have  known  you 
a  little  better,  I  have  lost  all  my  vanity.  I'm 
not  a  good  man  nor  a  wise  one.  I  have  no 
doubt  you  think  me  very  light  and  foolish,  but 
you  can't  begin  to  know  how  light  and  foolish 
I  am.  Marry  me  and  you'll  never  know.  If 
you  don't  marry  me,  I'm  afraid  you'll  never 
marry." 


GABRIELLE   DE    BEItGEIlAC  55 

"You're  very  frank,  Vicomte.  If  you  think 
I'm  afraid  of  never  marrying,  you're  mistaken. 
One  can  be  very  happy  as  an  old  maid.  I 
spend  six  weeks  every  year  with  the  ladies  of 
the  Visitation.  Several  of  them  are  excellent 
women,  charming  women.  They  read,  they 
educate  young  girls,  they  visit  the  poor— 

The  Vicomte  broke  into  a  laugh.  "They  get 
up  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning;  they  break 
fast  on  boiled  cabbage;  they  make  flannel 
waistcoats,  and  very  good  sweetmeats!  Why 
do  you  talk  so,  mademoiselle?  Why  do  you 
say  that  you  would  like  to  lead  such  a  life? 
One  might  almost  believe  it  is  coquetry. 
TeneZ;  I  believe  it's  ignorance, — ignorance  of 
your  own  feelings,  your  own  nature,  and  your 
own  needs."  M.  de  Treuil  paused  a  moment, 
and,  although  I  had  a  very  imperfect  notion 
of  the  meaning  of  his  words,  I  remember  being 
struck  with  the  vehement  look  of  his  pale  face, 
which  seemed  fairly  to  glow  in  the  darkness. 
Plainly,  he  was  in  love.  "You  are  not  made 
for  solitude,"  he  went  on;  "y°u  are  n°t  made 


56  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

to  be  buried  in  a  dingy  old  chateau,  in  the 
depths  of  a  ridiculous  province.  You  are  made 
for  the  world,  for  the  court,  for  pleasure,  to  be 
loved,  admired,  and  envied.  No,  you  don't 
know  yourself,  nor  does  Bergerac  know  you, 
nor  his  wife!  I,  at  least,  appreciate  you,  I 
know  that  you  are  supremely  beautiful— 

" Vicomte,"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  "y°u  for 
get—the  child." 

"Hang  the  child!  Why  did  you  bring 
him  along?  You  are  no  child.  You  can  un 
derstand  me.  You  are  a  woman,  full  of  intelli 
gence  and  goodness  and  beauty.  They  don't 
know  you  here,  they  think  you  a  little  demoi 
selle  in  pinafores.  Before  Heaven,  made 
moiselle,  there  is  that  about  you, — I  see  it,  I 
feel  it  here  at  your  side,  in  this  rustling  dark 
ness — there  is  that  about  you  that  a  man  would 
gladly  die  for." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  interrupted  him  with  en 
ergy.  "You  talk  extravagantly.  I  don't  un 
derstand  you;  you  frighten  me." 

"I  talk  as  I  feel.    I  frighten  you?    So  much 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  57 

the  better.  I  wish  to  stir  your  heart  and  get 
some  answer  to  the  passion  of  my  own." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  was  silent  a  moment,  as 
if  collecting  her  thoughts.  "If  I  talk  with  you 
on  this  subject,  I  must  do  it  with  my  wits  about 
me,"  she  said  at  last.  "I  must  know  exactly 
what  we  each  mean." 

"It's  plain  then  that  I  can't  hope  to  inspire 
you  with  any  degree  of  affection." 

"One  doesn't  promise  to  love,  Vicomte;  I 
can  only  answer  for  the  present.  My  heart  is 
so  full  of  good  wishes  toward  you  that  it  costs 
me  comparatively  little  to  say  I  don't  love 
you." 

"And  anything  I  may  say  of  my  own  feel 
ings  will  make  no  difference  to  you?" 

"You  have  said  you  love  me.  Let  it  rest 
there." 

"But  you  look  as  if  you  doubted  my  word." 

"You  can't  see  how  I  look;  Vicomte,  I  be 
lieve  you." 

"Well  then,  there  is  one  point  gained.  Let 
us  pass  to  the  others.  I'm  thirty  years  old.  I 


58  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

have  a  very  good  name  and  a  very  bad  reputa 
tion.  I  honestly  believe  that,  though  I've  fallen 
below  my  birth,  I've  kept  above  my  fame.  I 
believe  that  I  have  no  vices  of  temper;  I'm  nei 
ther  brutal,  nor  jealous,  nor  miserly.  As  for 
my  fortune,  I'm  obliged  to  admit  that  it  con 
sists  chiefly  in  my  expectations.  My  actual 
property  is  about  equal  to  your  brother's  and 
you  know  how  your  sister-in-law  is  obliged  to 
live.  My  expectations  are  thought  particularly 
good.  My  great-uncle,  M.  de  Sorbieres,  pos 
sesses,  chiefly  in  landed  estates,  a  fortune  of 
some  three  millions  of  livres.  I  have  no  impor 
tant  competitors,  either  in  blood  or  devotion. 
He  is  eighty-seven  years  old  and  paralytic,  and 
within  the  past  year  I  have  been  laying  siege 
to  his  favor  with  such  constancy  that  his  sur 
render,  like  his  extinction,  is  only  a  question  of 
time.  I  received  yesterday  a  summons  to  go 
with  him  to  the  Pyrenees,  to  drink  certain  me 
dicinal  waters.  The  least  he  can  do,  on  my 
return,  is  to  make  me  a  handsome  allowance, 
which  with  my  own  revenues  will  make — en 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  59 

attendant  better  things — a  sufficient  income  for 
a  reasonable  couple." 

There  was  a  pause  of  some  moments,  during 
which  we  slowly  walked  along  in  the  obstructed 
starlight,  the  silence  broken  only  by  the  train 
of  my  aunt's  dress  brushing  against  the  twigs 
and  pebbles. 

"What  a  pity,"  she  said,  at  last,  "that  you 
are  not  able  to  speak  of  all  this  good  fortune 
as  in  the  present  rather  than  in  the  future." 

"There  it  is!  Until  I  came  to  know  you,  I 
had  no  thoughts  of  marriage.  What  did  I 
want  of  wealth  ?  If  five  years  ago  I  had  fore 
seen  this  moment,  I  should  stand  here  with 
something  better  than  promises.'* 

"Well,  Vicomte,"  pursued  the  young  girl, 
with  singular  composure,  "you  do  me  the  honor 
to  think  very  well  of  me :  I  hope  you  will  not  be 
vexed  to  find  that  prudence  is  one  of  my  vir 
tues.  If  I  marry,  I  wish  to  marry  w^ell.  It's 
not  only  the  husband,  but  the  marriage  that 
counts.  In  accepting  you  as  you  stand,  I 


60  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

should  make  neither  a  sentimental  match  nor 
a  brilliant  one." 

"Excellent.  I  love  you,  prudence  and  all. 
Say,  then,  that  I  present  myself  here  three 
months  hence  with  the  titles  and  tokens  of 
property  amounting  to  a  million  and  a  half  of 
livres,  will  you  consider  that  I  am  a  parti  suffi 
ciently  brilliant  to  make  you  forget  that  you 
don't  love  me?" 

"I  should  never  forget  that." 

"Well,  nor  I  either.  It  makes  a  sort  of  sor 
rowful  harmony !  If  three  months  hence,  I  re 
peat,  I  offer  you  a  fortune  instead  of  this  poor 
empty  hand,  will  you  accept  the  one  for  the 
sake  of  the  other?" 

My  aunt  stopped  short  in  the  path.  "I  hope, 
Vicomte,"  she  said,  with  much  apparent  sim 
plicity,  "that  you  are  going  to  do  nothing  indel 
icate." 

"God  forbid,  mademoiselle!  It  shall  be  a 
clean  hand  and  a  clean  fortune." 

"If  you  ask  then  a  promise,  a  pledge — " 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  61 

"You'll  not  give  it.  I  ask  then  only  for  a 
little  hope.  Give  it  in  what  form  you  will." 

We  walked  a  few  steps  farther  and  came  out 
from  among  the  shadows,  beneath  the  open  sky. 
The  voice  of  M.  de  Treuil,  as  he  uttered  these 
words,  was  low  and  deep  and  tender  and  full 
of  entreaty.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  cannot  but 
have  been  deeply  moved.  I  think  she  was  some 
what  awe-struck  at  having  called  up  such  a 
force  of  devotion  in  a  nature  deemed  cold  and 
inconstant.  She  put  out  her  hand.  "I  wish 
success  to  any  honorable  efforts.  In  any  case 
you  will  be  happier  for  your  wealth.  In  one  case 
it  will  get  you  a  wife,  and  in  the  other  it  will 
console  you." 

"Console  me!  I  shall  hate  it,  despise  it,  and 
throw  it  into  the  sea!" 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  had  no  intention,  of 
course,  of  leaving  her  companion  under  an  illu 
sion.  "Ah,  but  understand,  Vicomte,"  she  said, 
"I  make  no  promise.  My  brother  claims  the 
right  to  bestow  my  hand.  If  he  wishes  our 


62  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

marriage  now,  of  course  he  will  wish  it  three 
months  hence.  I  have  never  gainsaid  him." 

"From  now  to  three  months  a  great  deal  may 
happen." 

"To  you,  perhaps,  but  not  to  me." 

"Are  you  going  to  your  friends  of  the  Visita 
tion?" 

"No,  indeed.  I  have  no  wish  to  spend  the 
summer  in  a  cloister.  I  prefer  the  green 
fields." 

"Well,  then  va  for  the  green  fields!  They're 
the  next  best  thing.  I  recommend  you  to  the 
Chevalier's  protection." 

We  had  made  half  the  circuit  of  the  park, 
and  turned  into  an  alley  which  stretched  away 
towards  the  house,  and  about  midway  in  its 
course  separated  into  two  paths,  one  leading 
to  the  main  avenue,  arid  the  other  to  the  little 
pavilion  inhabited  by  Coquelin.  At  the  point 
where  the  alley  was  divided  stood  an  enormous 
oak  of  great  circumference,  with  a  circular 
bench  surrounding  its  trunk.  It  occupied,  I 
believe,  the  central  point  of  the  whole  domain. 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  63 

As  we  reached  the  oak,  I  looked  down  along 
the  footpath  towards  the  pavilion,  and  saw 
Coquelin's  light  shining  in  one  of  the  windows. 
I  immediately  proposed  that  we  should  pay  him 
a  visit.  My  aunt  objected,  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  doubtless  busy  and  would  not  thank  us 
for  interrupting  him.  And  then,  when  I  in 
sisted,  she  said  it  was  not  proper. 

"How  not  proper?" 

"It's  not  proper  for  me.  A  lady  doesn't 
visit  young  men  in  their  own  apartments." 

At  this  the  Vicomte  cried  out.  He  was  part 
ly  amused,  I  think,  at  my  aunt's  attaching  any 
compromising  power  to  poor  little  Coquelin, 
and  partly  annoyed  at  her  not  considering  his 
own  company,  in  view  of  his  pretensions,  a  suf 
ficient  guaranty. 

"I  should  think,"  he  said,  "that  with  the  Che 
valier  and  me  you  might  venture— 

"As  you  please,  then,"  said  my  aunt.  And 
I  accordingly  led  the  way  to  my  governor's 
abode. 

It  was  a  small  edifice  of  a  single  floor,  stand- 


64  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGE11AC 

ing  prettily  enough  among  the  trees,  and  still 
habitable,  although  very  much  in  disrepair.  It 
had  been  built  by  that  same  ancestor  to  whom 
Bergerac  was  indebted,  in  the  absence  of  sev 
eral  of  the  necessities  of  life,  for  many  of  its 
elegant  superfluities,  and  had  been  designed,  I 
suppose,  as  a  scene  of  pleasure, — such  pleasure 
as  he  preferred  to  celebrate  elsewhere  than  be 
neath  the  roof  of  his  domicile.  Whether  it  had 
ever  been  used  I  know  not ;  but  it  certainly  had 
very  little  of  the  look  of  a  pleasure-house.  Such 
furniture  as  it  had  once  possessed  had  long 
since  been  transferred  to  the  needy  saloons  of 
the  chateau,  and  it  now  looked  dark  and  bare 
and  cold.  In  front,  the  shrubbery  had  been  left 
to  grow  thick  and  wild  and  almost  totally  to 
exclude  the  light  from  the  windows;  but  be 
hind,  outside  of  the  two  rooms  which  he  occu 
pied,  and  wrhich  had  been  provided  from  the 
chateau  with  the  articles  necessary  for  comfort, 
Coquelin  had  obtained  my  father's  permission 
to  effect  a  great  clearance  in  the  foliage,  and 
he  now  enjoyed  plenty  of  sunlight  and  a 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  65 

charming  view  of  the  neighboring  country.  It 
was  in  the  larger  of  these  two  rooms,  arranged 
as  a  sort  of  study,  that  we  found  him. 

He  seemed  surprised  and  somewhat  con 
fused  by  our  visit,  but  he  very  soon  recovered 
himself  sufficiently  to  do  the  honors  of  his  little 
establishment. 

"It  was  an  idea  of  my  nephew,"  said  Mile, 
de  Bergerac.  "We  were  walking  in  the  park, 
and  he  saw  your  light.  Now  that  we  are  here, 
Chevalier,  what  would  you  have  us  do?" 

"M.  Coquelin  has  some  very  pretty  things 
to  show  you,"  said  I. 

Coquelin  turned  very  red.  "Pretty  things, 
Chevalier?  Pray,  what  do  you  mean?  I  have 
some  of  your  nephew's  copy-books,"  he  said, 
turning  to  my  aunt. 

"Nay,  you  have  some  of  your  own,"  I  cried. 
"He  has  books  full  of  drawings,  made  by  him 
self." 

"Ah,  you  draw?"  said  the  Vicomte. 

"M.  le  Chevalier  does  me  the  honor  to  think 


66  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

so.  My  drawings  are  meant  for  no  critics  but 
children." 

"In  the  way  of  criticism,"  said  my  aunt, 
gently,  "we  too  are  children."  Her  beautiful 
eyes,  as  she  uttered  these  words,  must  have  been 
quite  as  gentle  as  her  voice.  Coquelin  looked 
at  her,  thinking  very  modestly  of  his  little  pic 
tures,  but  loth  to  refuse  the  first  request  she 
had  ever  made  him. 

"Show  them,  at  any  rate,"  said  the  Vicomte, 
in  a  somewhat  peremptory  tone.  In  those 
days,  you  see,  a  man  occupying  Coquelin's 
place  was  expected  to  hold  all  his  faculties  and 
talents  at  the  disposal  of  his  patron,  and  it  was 
thought  an  unwarrantable  piece  of  assumption 
that  he  should  cultivate  any  of  the  arts  for  his 
own  peculiar  delectation.  In  withholding  his 
drawings,  therefore,  it  may  have  seemed  to  the 
Vicomte  that  Coquelin  was  unfaithful  to  the 
service  to  which  he  was  held, — that,  namely,  of 
instructing,  diverting,  and  edifying  the  house 
hold  of  Bergerac.  Coquelin  went  to  a  little 
cupboard  in  the  wall,  and  took  out  three  small 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  67 

albums  and  a  couple  of  portfolios.     Mile,  de 
Bergerac  sat  down  at  the  table,  and  Coquelin 
drew  up  the  lamp  and  placed  his  drawings 
before  her.     He  turned  them  over,  and  gave 
such  explanations  as  seemed  necessary.    I  have 
only  my  childish  impressions  of  the  character 
of  these  sketches,  which,  in  my  eyes,  of  course, 
seemed  prodigiously  clever.     What  the  judg 
ment  of  my  companions  was  worth  I  know  not, 
but  they  appeared  very  well  pleased.    The  Vi- 
comte  probably  knew  a  good  sketch  from  a 
poor  one,   and  he  very  good-naturedly  pro 
nounced  my  tutor  an  extremely  knowing  fel 
low.    Coquelin  had  drawn  anything  and  every 
thing, — peasants  and  dumb  brutes,  landscapes 
and  Parisian  types  and  figures,  taken  indiffer 
ently  from  high  and  low  life.     But  the  best 
pieces  in  the  collection  were  a  series  of  illus 
trations  and  reminiscences  of  his  adventures 
with  the  American  army,  and  of  the  figures 
and  episodes  he  had  observed  in  the  Colonies. 
They  were  for  the  most  part  rudely  enough 
executed,  owing  to  his  want  of  time  and  mate- 


G8  GABRIELL.E    DE    BERGERAC 

rials,  but  they  were  full  of  finesse  and  charac 
ter.  M.  de  Treuil  was  very  much  amused  at 
the  rude  equipments  of  your  ancestors.  There 
were  sketches  of  the  enemy  too,  whom  Coque- 
lin  had  apparently  not  been  afraid  to  look  in 
the  face.  While  he  was  turning  over  these  de 
signs  for  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  the  Vicomte  took 
up  one  of  his  portfolios,  and,  after  a  short  in 
spection,  drew  from  it,  with  a  cry  of  surprise, 
a  large  portrait  in  pen  and  ink. 

"Tien*!"  said  I;  "it's  my  aunt!" 

Coquelin  turned  pale.  Mile,  de  Bergerac 
looked  at  him,  and  turned  the  least  bit  red.  As 
for  the  Vicomte,  he  never  changed  color. 
There  was  no  eluding  the  fact  that  it  was  a 
likeness,  and  Coquelin  had  to  pay  the  penalty 
of  his  skill. 

"I  didn't  know,"  he  said,  at  random,  "that  it 
was  in  that  portfolio.  Do  you  recognize  it, 
mademoiselle?" 

"Ah,"  said  the  Vicomte,  dryly,  "M.  Coquelin 
meant  to  hide  it.' 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  69 

"It's  too  pretty  to  hide,"  said  my  aunt;  "and 
yet  it's  too  pretty  to  show.  It's  flattered." 

"Why  should  I  have  flattered  you,  mademoi 
selle?"  asked  Coquelin.  "You  were  never  to 
see  it." 

"That's  what  it  is,  mademoiselle,"  said  the 
Vicomte,  "to  have  such  dazzling  heauty.  It 
penetrates  the  world.  Who  knows  where 
you'll  find  it  reflected  next?" 

However  pretty  a  compliment  this  may  have 
been  to  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  it  was  decidedly  a 
back-handed  blow  to  Coquelin.  The  young 
girl  perceived  that  he  felt  it. 

She  rose  to  her  feet.  "My  beauty,"  she  said, 
with  a  slight  tremor  in  her  voice,  "would  be 
a  small  thing  without  M.  Coquelin's  talent. 
We  are  much  obliged  to  you.  I  hope  that 
you'll  bring  your  pictures  to  the  chateau,  so 
that  we  may  look  at  the  rest." 

"Are  you  going  to  leave  him  this?"  asked  M. 
de  Treuil,  holding  up  the  portrait. 

"If  M.  Coquelin  will  give  it  to  me,  I  shall  be 
very  glad  to  have  it." 


70  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

"One  doesn't  keep  one's  own  portrait,"  said 
the  Vicomte.  "It  ought  to  belong  to  me."  In 
those  days,  before  the  invention  of  our  sublime 
machinery  for  the  reproduction  of  the  human 
face,  a  young  fellow  was  very  glad  to  have  his 
mistress's  likeness  in  pen  and  ink. 

But  Coquelin  had  no  idea  of  contributing  to 
the  Vicomte's  gallery.  "Excuse  me,"  he  said, 
gently,  but  looking  the  nobleman  in  the  face. 
"The  picture  isn't  good  enough  for  Mile,  de 
Bergerac,  but  it's  too  good  for  any  one  else"; 
and  he  drew  it  out  of  the  other's  hands,  tore  it 
across,  and  applied  it  to  the  flame  of  the  lamp. 

We  went  back  to  the  chateau  in  silence.  The 
drawing-room  was  empty;  but  as  we  went  in, 
the  Vicomte  took  a  lighted  candle  from  a  table 
and  raised  it  to  the  young  girl's  face.  "Par- 
bleu!"  he  exclaimed,  "the  vagabond  had  looked 
at  you  to  good  purpose !" 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  gave  a  half-confused 
laugh.  "At  any  rate,"  she  said,  "he  didn't  hold 
a  candle  to  me  as  if  I  were  my  old  smoke- 
stained  grandame,  yonder!"  and  she  blew  out 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  71 

the  light.    "I'll  call  my  brother,"  she  said,  pre 
paring  to  retire. 

"A  moment,"  said  her  lover;  "I  shall  not  see 
you  for  some  weeks.  I  shall  start  to-morrow 
with  my  uncle.  I  shall  think  of  you  by  day, 
and  dream  of  you  by  night.  And  meanwhile 
I  shall  very  much  doubt  whether  you  think  of 


me." 


Mile,  de  Bergerac  smiled.  "Doubt,  doubt. 
It  will  help  you  to  pass  the  time.  With  faith 
alone  it  would  hang  very  heavy." 

"It  seems  hard,"  pursued  M.  de  Treuil,  "that 
I  should  give  you  so  many  pledges,  and  that 
you  should  give  me  none." 
"I  give  all  I  ask." 

"Then,  for  Heaven's  sake,  ask  for  some 
thing!" 

"Your  kind  words  are  all  I  want." 
"Then  give  me  some  kind  word  yourself." 
"What  shall  I  say,  Vicomte?" 
"Say, — say  that  you'll  wait  for  me." 
They  were   standing  in  the  centre  of  the 
great  saloon,  their  figures  reflected  by  the  light 


72  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

of  a  couple  of  candles  in  the  shining  inlai 
floor.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  walked  away  a  fe^ 
steps  with  a  look  of  agitation.  Then  turnini 
about,  "Vicomte,"  she  asked,  in  a  deep,  fu] 
voice,  "do  you  truly  love  me?" 

"Ah,  Gabrielle!"  cried  the  young  man. 

I  take  it  that  no  woman  can  hear  her  baptis 
mal  name  uttered  for  the  first  time  as  that  o 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  then  came  from  her  suitor' 
lips  without  being  thrilled  with  joy  and  pridt 

"Well,  M.  de  Treuil,"  she  said,  "I  will  wai 
for  you." 


PART  II 

I  REMEMBER  distinctly  the  incidents  of 
that  summer  at  Bergerac;  or  at  least  its 
general  character,  its  tone.  It  was  a  hot, 
dry  season ;  we  lived  with  doors  and  win 
dows  open.  M.  Coquelin  suffered  very  much 
from  the  heat,  and  sometimes,  for  days  together, 
my  lessons  were  suspended.  We  put  our  books 
away  and  rambled  out  for  a  long  day  in  the 
fields.  My  tutor  was  perfectly  faithful;  he 
never  allowed  me  to  wander  beyond  call.  I 
was  very  fond  of  fishing,  and  I  used  to  sit  for 
hours,  like  a  little  old  man,  with  my  legs  dan 
gling  over  the  bank  of  our  slender  river,  pa 
tiently  awaiting  the  bite  that  so  seldom  came. 
Near  at  hand,  in  the  shade,  stretched  at  his 
length  on  the  grass,  Coquelin  read  and  re-read 
one  of  his  half  dozen  Greek  and  Latin  poets. 
If  we  had  walked  far  from  home,  wre  used  to 
go  and  ask  for  some  dinner  at  the  hut  of  a 

73 


74  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

neighboring  peasant.  For  a  very  small  coin 
we  got  enough  bread  and  cheese  and  small  fruit 
to  keep  us  over  till  supper.  The  peasants,  stu 
pid  and  squalid  as  they  were,  always  received 
us  civilly  enough,  though  on  Coquelin's  ac 
count  quite  as  much  as  on  my  own.  He  ad 
dressed  them  with  an  easy  familiarity,  which 
made  them  feel,  I  suppose,  that  he  was,  if  not 
quite  one  of  themselves,  at  least  by  birth  and 
sympathies  much  nearer  to  them  than  to  the 
future  Baron  de  Bergerac.  He  gave  me  in  the 
course  of  these  walks  a  great  deal  of  good 
advice;  and  without  perverting  my  signorial 
morals  or  instilling  any  notions  that  were  trea 
son  to  my  rank  and  position,  he  kindled  in  my 
childish  breast  a  little  democratic  flame  which 
has  never  quite  become  extinct.  He  taught  me 
the  beauty  of  humanity,  justice,  and  tolerance; 
and  whenever  he  detected  me  in  a  precocious 
attempt  to  assert  my  baronial  rights  over  the 
wretched  little  manants  who  crossed  my  path, 
he  gave  me  morally  a  very  hard  drubbing.  He 
had  none  of  the  base  complaisance  and  cynical 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  75 

nonchalance  of  the  traditional  tutor  of  our  old 
novels  and  comedies.  Later  in  life  I  might 
have  found  him  too  rigorous  a  moralist;  but 
in  those  days  I  liked  him  all  the  better  for  let 
ting  me  sometimes  feel  the  curb.  It  gave  me 
a  highly  agreeable  sense  of  importance  and 
maturity.  It  was  a  tribute  to  half-divined  pos 
sibilities  of  naughtiness.  In  the  afternoon, 
when  I  was  tired  of  fishing,  he  would  lie  with 
his  thumb  in  his  book  and  his  eyes  half  closed 
and  tell  me  fairy-tales  till  the  eyes  of  both  of 
us  closed  together.  Do  the  instructors  of  youth 
nowadays  condescend  to  the  fairy-tale  pure 
and  simple?  Coquelin's  stories  belonged  to  the 
old,  old  world:  no  political  economy,  no  phys 
ics,  no  application  to  anything  in  life.  Do  you 
remember  in  Dore's  illustrations  to  Perrault's 
tales,  the  picture  of  the  enchanted  castle  of  the 
Sleeping  Beauty?  Back  in  the  distance,  in  the 
bosom  of  an  ancient  park  and  surrounded  by 
thick  baronial  woods  which  blacken  all  the 
gloomy  horizon,  on  the  farther  side  of  a  great 
abysmal  hollow  of  tangled  forest  verdure,  rise 


76  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

the  long  facade,  the  moss-grown  terraces,  the 
towers,  the  purple  roofs,  of  a  chateau  of  the 
time  of  Henry  IV.  Its  massive  foundations 
plunge  far  down  into  the  wild  chasm  of  the 
woodland,  and  its  cold  pinnacles  of  slate  tower 
upwards,  close  to  the  rolling  autumn  clouds. 
The  afternoon  is  closing  in  and  a  chill  October 
wind  is  beginning  to  set  the  forest  a-howling. 
In  the  foreground,  on  an  elevation  beneath  a 
mighty  oak,  stand  a  couple  of  old  woodcutters 
pointing  across  into  the  enchanted  distance  and 
answering  the  questions  of  the  young  prince. 
They  are  the  bent  and  blackened  woodcutters 
of  old  France,  of  La  Fontaine's  Fables  and  the 
Mcdecin  malgre  lid.  What  does  the  castle 
contain?  What  secret  is  locked  in  its  stately 
walls?  What  revel  is  enacted  in  its  long  sa 
loons  ?  What  strange  figures  stand  aloof  from 
its  vacant  windows?  You  ask  the  question, 
and  the  answer  is  a  long  revery.  I  never  look 
at  the  picture  without  thinking  of  those  sum 
mer  afternoons  in  the  woods  and  of  Coquelin's 
long  stories.  His  fairies  were  the  fairies  of  the 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  77 

Grand  Siecle,  and  his  princes  and  shepherds 
the  godsons  of  Perrault  and  Madame  d'Aul- 
nay.  They  lived  in  such  palaces  and  they 
hunted  in  such  woods. 

Mile,  de  Bergerac,  to  all  appearance,  was 
not  likely  to  break  her  promise  to  M.  de  Treuil, 
—for  lack  of  the  opportunity,  quite  as  much  as 
of  the  will.  Those  bright  summer  days  must 
have  seemed  very  long  to  her,  and  I  can't  for 
my  life  imagine  what  she  did  with  her  time. 
But  she,  too,  as  she  had  told  the  Vicomte,  was 
very  fond  of  the  green  fields ;  and  although  she 
never  wandered  very  far  from  the  house,  she 
spent  many  an  hour  in  the  open  air.  Neither 
here  nor  within  doors  was  she  likely  to  encoun 
ter  the  happy  man  of  whom  the  Vicomte  might 
be  jealous.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  had  a  friend,  a 
single  intimate  friend,  who  came  sometimes  to 
pass  the  day  with  her,  and  whose  visits  she 
occasionally  returned.  Marie  de  Chalais,  the 
granddaughter  of  the  Marquis  de  Chalais,  who 
lived  some  ten  miles  away,  was  in  all  respects 
the  exact  counterpart  and  foil  of  my  aunt.  She 


78  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

was  extremely  plain,  but  with  that  sprightly, 
highly  seasoned  ugliness  which  is  often  so 
agreeable  to  men.  Short,  spare,  swarthy,  light, 
with  an  immense  mouth,  a  most  impertinent 
little  nose,  an  imperceptible  foot,  a  charming 
hand,  and  a  delightful  voice,  she  was,  in  spite 
of  her  great  name  and  her  fine  clothes,  the  very 
ideal  of  the  old  stage  soubrctte,  Frequently, 
indeed,  in  her  dress  and  manner,  she  used  to 
provoke  a  comparison  with  this  incomparable 
type.  A  cap,  an  apron,  and  a  short  petticoat 
were  all  sufficient;  writh  these  and  her  bold, 
dark  eyes  she  could  impersonate  the  very 
genius  of  impertinence  and  intrigue.  She  was 
a  thoroughly  light  creature,  and  later  in  life, 
after  her  marriage,  she  became  famous  for  her 
ugliness,  her  witticisms,  and  her  adventures; 
but  that  she  had  a  good  heart  is  shown  by  her 
real  attachment  to  my  aunt.  They  were  for 
ever  at  cross-purposes,  and  yet  they  were  ex 
cellent  friends.  When  my  aunt  wished  to  walk, 
Mile,  de  Chalais  wished  to  sit  still;  when  Mile, 
de  Chalais  wished  to  laugh,  my  aunt  wished  to 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  79 

meditate;  when  my  aunt  wished  to  talk  piety, 
Mile,  de  Chalais  wished  to  talk  scandal.  Mile, 
de  Bergerac,  however,  usually  carried  the  day 
and  set  the  tune.  There  was  nothing  on  earth 
that  Marie  de  Chalais  so  despised  as  the  green 
fields ;  and  yet  you  might  have  seen  her  a  dozen 
times  that  summer  wandering  over  the  domain 
of  Bergerac,  in  a  short  muslin  dress  and  a  straw 
hat,  with  her  arm  entwined  about  the  waist  of 
her  more  stately  friend.  We  used  often  to 
meet  them,  and  as  we  drew  near  Mile,  de 
Chalais  would  always  stop  and  offer  to  kiss 
the  Chevalier.  By  this  pretty  trick  Coquelin 
was  subjected  for  a  few  moments  to  the  influ 
ence  of  her  innocent  agaperies;  for  rather  than 
have  no  man  at  all  to  prick  with  the  little  darts 
of  her  coquetry,  the  poor  girl  would  have 
gone  off  and  made  eyes  at  the  scare-crow  in  the 
wheat-field.  Coquelin  was  not  at  all  abashed 
by  her  harmless  advances;  for  although,  in 
addressing  my  aunt,  he  was  apt  to  lose  his  voice 
or  his  countenance,  he  often  showed  a  very 
pretty  wit  in  answering  Mile,  de  Chalais. 


80  GABIUELI.E    DE    BEUGERAC 

On  one  occasion  she  spent  several  days  at 
Bergerac,  and  during  her  stay  she  proffered 
an  urgent  entreaty  that  my  aunt  should  go 
back  with  her  to  her  grandfather's  house, 
where,  having  no  parents,  she  lived  with  her 
governess.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  declined,  on  the 
ground  of  having  no  gowns  fit  to  visit  in; 
whereupon  Mile,  de  Chalais  went  to  my 
mother,  begged  the  gift  of  an  old  blue  silk 
dress,  and  with  her  own  cunning  little  hands 
made  it  over  for  my  aunt's  figure.  That  even 
ing  Mile,  de  Bergerac  appeared  at  supper  in 
this  renovated  garment, — the  first  silk  gown 
she  had  ever  worn.  Mile,  de  Chalais  had  also 
dressed  her  hair,  and  decked  her  out  writh  a 
number  of  trinkets  and  furbelows;  and  when 
the  two  came  into  the  room  together,  they  re 
minded  me  of  the  beautiful  Duchess  in  Don 
Quixote,  followed  by  a  little  dark-visaged 
Spanish  waiting-maid.  The  next  morning 
Coquelin  and  I  rambled  off  as  usual  in  search 
of  adventures,  and  the  day  after  that  they  were 
to  leave  the  chateau.  Whether  wre  met  with 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  81 

any  adventures  or  not  I  forget;  but  we  found 
ourselves  at  dinner-time  at  some  distance  from 
home,  very  hungry  after  a  long  tramp.  We 
directed  our  steps  to  a  little  roadside  hovel, 
where  we  had  already  purchased  hospitality, 
and  made  our  way  in  unannounced.  We  were 
somewhat  surprised  at  the  scene  that  met  our 
eyes. 

On  a  wretched  bed  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
hut  lay  the  master  of  the  household,  a  young 
peasant  whom  we  had  seen  a  fortnight  before 
in  full  health  and  vigor.  At  the  head  of  the 
bed  stood  his  wife,  moaning,  crying,  and  wring 
ing  her  hands.  Hanging  about  her,  clinging 
to  her  skirts,  and  adding  their  piping  cries  to 
her  own  lamentations,  were  four  little  children, 
unwrashed,  unfed,  and  half  clad.  At  the  foot, 
facing  the  dying  man,  knelt  his  old  mother — a 
horrible  hag,  so  bent  and  brown  and  wrinkled 
with  labor  and  age  that  there  was  nothing 
womanly  left  of  her  but  her  coarse,  rude  dress 
and  cap,  nothing  of  maternity  but  her  sobs. 
Beside  the  pillow  stood  the  priest,  who  had  ap- 


82  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGEIIAC 

parently  just  discharged  the  last  offices  of  the 
Church.  On  the  other  side,  on  her  knees,  with 
the  poor  fellow's  hand  in  her  own,  knelt  Mile, 
de  Bergerac,  like  a  consoling  angel.  On  a 
stool  near  the  door,  looking  on  from  a  distance, 
sat  Mile,  de  Chalais,  holding  a  little  bleating 
kid  in  her  arms.  When  she  saw  us,  she  started 
up.  "Ah,  M.  Coquelin!"  she  cried,  "do  per 
suade  Mile,  de  Bergerac  to  leave  this  horrible 
place." 

I  saw  Mile,  de  Bergerac  look  at  the  cure  and 
shake  her  head,  as  if  to  say  that  it  was  all  over. 
She  rose  from  her  knees  and  went  round  to 
the  wife,  telling  the  same  tale  with  her  face. 
The  poor,  squalid  paysanne  gave  a  sort  of 
savage,  stupid  cry,  and  threw  herself  and  her 
rags  on  the  young  girl's  neck.  Mile,  de  Ber 
gerac  caressed  her,  and  whispered  heaven 
knows  what  divinely  simple  words  of  comfort. 
Then,  for  the  first  time,  she  saw  Coquelin  and 
me,  and  beckoned  us  to  approach. 

"Chevalier,"    she    said,    still    holding    the 


GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC  83 

woman  on  her  breast,  ''have  you  got  any 
money?" 

At  these  words  the  woman  raised  her  head. 
I  signified  that  I  was  penniless. 

My  aunt  frowned  impatiently.  "M.  Coque- 
lin,  have  you?" 

Coquelin  drew  forth  a  single  small  piece, 
all  that  he  possessed ;  for  it  was  the  end  of  his 
month.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  took  it,  and  pur 
sued  her  inquiry. 

"Cure,  have  you  any  money?" 

"Not  a  sou/'  said  the  cure,  smiling  sweetly. 

"Bah!"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  with  a  sort 
of  tragic  petulance.  "What  can  I  do  with 
twelve  sous?" 

"Give  it  all  the  same,"  said  the  woman, 
doggedly,  putting  out  her  hand. 

"They  want  money,"  said  Mile  de  Bergerac, 
lowering  her  voice  to  Coquelin.  "They  have 
had  this  great  sorrow,  but  a  louts  d'or  would 
dull  the  wound.  But  we're  all  penniless.  O 
for  the  sight  of  a  little  gold!" 


84  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

"I  have  a  louis  at  home,"  said  I;  and  I  felt 
Coquelin  lay  his  hand  on  my  head. 

"What  was  the  matter  with  the  husband?" 
he  asked. 

fcMon  Dieu!"  said  my  aunt,  glancing  round 
at  the  bed.  "I  don't  know." 

Coquelin  looked  at  her,  half  amazed,  half 
worshipping. 

"Who  are  they,  these  people?  What  are 
they?"  she  asked. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Coquelin,  fervently, 
"you're  an  angel!" 

"I  wish  I  were,"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac, 
simply ;  and  she  turned  to  the  old  mother. 

We  walked  home  together, — the  cure  with 
Mile,  de  Chalais  and  me,  and  Mile,  de  Berge 
rac  in  front  with  Coquelin.  Asking  how  the 
two  young  girls  had  found  their  way  to  the 
deathbed  we  had  just  left,  I  learned  from 
Mile,  de  Chalais  that  they  had  set  out  for  a 
stroll  together,  and,  striking  into  a  footpath 
across  the  fields,  had  gone  farther  than  they 
supposed,  and  lost  their  way.  While  they  were 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  85 

trying  to  recover  it,  they  came  upon  the 
wretched  hut  where  we  had  found  them,  and 
were  struck  by  the  sight  of  two  children,  stand 
ing  crying  at  the  door.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  had 
stopped  and  questioned  them  to  ascertain  the 
cause  of  their  sorrow,  which  with  some  diffi 
culty  she  found  to  be  that  their  father  was 
dying  of  a  fever.  Whereupon,  in  spite  of  her 
companion's  lively  opposition,  she  had  entered 
the  miserable  abode,  and  taken  her  place  at 
the  wretched  couch,  in  the  position  in  which  we 
had  discovered  her.  All  this,  doubtless,  implied 
no  extraordinary  merit  on  Mile,  de  Bergerac's 
part;  but  it  placed  her  in  a  gracious,  pleasing 
light. 

The  next  morning  the  young  girls  went  off 
in  the  great  coach  of  M.  de  Chalais,  which  had 
been  sent  for  them  overnight,  my  father  riding 
along  as  an  escort.  My  aunt  was  absent  a 
week,  and  I  think  I  may  say  we  keenly  missed 
her.  When  I  say  we,  I  mean  Coquelin  and  I, 
and  when  I  say  Coquelin  and  I,  I  mean  Co 
quelin  in  particular;  for  it  had  come  to  this, 


86  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

that  my  tutor  was  roundly  in  love  with  my 
aunt.  I  didn't  know  it  then,  of  course;  but 
looking  back,  I  see  that  he  must  already  have 
been  stirred  to  his  soul's  depths.  Young  as  I 
was,  moreover,  I  believe  that  I  even  then  sus 
pected  his  passion,  and,  loving  him  as  I  did, 
watched  it  with  a  vague,  childish  awe  and  sym 
pathy.  My  aunt  was  to  me,  of  course,  a  very 
old  story,  and  I  am  sure  she  neither  charmed 
nor  dazzled  my  boyish  fancy.  I  was  quite  too 
young  to  apprehend  the  meaning  or  the  conse 
quences  of  Coquelin's  feelings ;  but  I  knew  that 
he  had  a  secret,  and  I  wished  him  joy  of  it. 
He  kept  so  jealous  a  guard  on  it  that  I  would 
have  defied  my  elders  to  discover  the  least  rea 
son  for  accusing  him;  but  with  a  simple  child 
of  ten,  thinking  himself  alone  and  uninter- 
preted,  he  showed  himself  plainly  a  lover.  He 
was  absent,  restless,  preoccupied;  now  steeped 
in  languid  revery,  now  pacing  up  and  down 
with  the  exaltation  of  something  akin  to  hope. 
Hope  itself  he  could  never  have  felt;  for  it 
must  have  seemed  to  him  that  his  passion  was 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  87 

so  audacious  as  almost  to  be  criminal.  Mile,  de 
Bergerac's  absence  showed  him,  I  imagine, 
that  to  know  her  had  been  the  event  of  his  life ; 
to  see  her  across  the  table,  to  hear  her  voice,  her 
tread,  to  pass  her,  to  meet  her  eye,  a  deep,  con 
soling,  healing  joy.  It  revealed  to  him  the 
force  with  which  she  had  grasped  his  heart,  and 
I  think  he  was  half  frightened  at  the  energy 
of  his  passion. 

One  evening,  while  Mile,  de  Bergerac  was 
still  away,  I  sat  in  his  window,  committing  my 
lesson  for  the  morrow  by  the  waning  light. 
He  was  walking  up  and  down  among  the  shad 
ows.  "Chevalier,"  said  he,  suddenly,  "what 
should  you  do  if  I  were  to  leave  you?" 

My  poor  little  heart  stood  still.  "Leave 
me?"  I  cried,  aghast;  "why  should  you  leave 
me?" 

"Why,  you  know  I  didn't  come  to  stay  for 


ever." 


"But  you  came  to  stay  till  I'm  a  man  grown, 
Don't  you  like  your  place?" 
"Perfectly." 


88  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

"Don't  you  like  my  father?" 

"Your  father  is  excellent." 

"And  my  mother?" 

"Your  mother  is  perfect." 

"And  me,  Coquelin?" 

"You,  Chevalier,  are  a  little  goose." 

And  then,  from  a  sort  of  unreasoned  instinct 
that  Mile,  de  Bergerac  was  somehow  connected 
with  his  idea  of  going  away,  "And  my  aunt?" 
I  added. 

"How,  your  aunt?" 

"Don't  you  like  her?" 

Coquelin  had  stopped  in  his  walk,  and  stood 
near  me  and  above  me.  He  looked  at  me  some 
moments  without  answering,  and  then  sat  down 
beside  me  in  the  window-seat,  and  laid  his  hand 
on  my  head. 

"Chevalier,"  he  said,  "I  will  tell  you  some 
thing." 

"Well?"  said  I,  after  I  had  waited  some 
time. 

"One  of  these  days  you  will  be  a  man  grown, 
and  I  shall  have  left  you  long  before  that. 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  89 

You'll  learn  a  great  many  things  that  you  don't 
know  now.  You'll  learn  what  a  strange,  vast 
world  it  is,  and  what  strange  creatures  men 
are — and  women;  how  strong,  how  weak,  how 
happy,  how  unhappy.  You'll  learn  how  many 
feelings  and  passions  they  have,  and  what  a 
power  of  joy  and  of  suffering.  You'll  be 
Baron  de  Bergerac  and  master  of  the  chateau 
and  of  this  little  house.  You'll  sometimes  be 
very  proud  of  your  title,  and  you'll  sometimes 
feel  very  sad  that  it's  so  little  more  than  a  bare 
title.  But  neither  your  pride  nor  your  grief 
will  come  to  anything  beside  this,  that  one  day, 
in  the  prime  of  your  youth  and  strength  and 
good  looks,  you'll  see  a  woman  whom  you  will 
love  more  than  all  these  things, — more  than 
your  name,  your  lands,  your  youth,  and 
strength,  and  beauty.  It  happens  to  all  men, 
especially  the  good  ones,  and  you'll  be  a  good 
one.  But  the  woman  you  love  will  be  far  out 
of  your  reach.  She'll  be  a  princess,  perhaps 
she'll  be  the  Queen.  How  can  a  poor  little 
Baron  de  Bergerac  expect  her  to  look  at  him? 


90  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

You  will  give  up  your  life  for  a  touch  of  her 
hand;  but  what  will  she  care  for  your  life  or 
your  death?  You'll  curse  your  love,  and  yet 
you'll  bless  it,  and  perhaps — not  having  your 
living  to  get — you'll  come  up  here  and  shut 
yourself  up  with  your  dreams  and  regrets. 
You'll  come  perhaps  into  this  pavilion,  and  sit 
here  alone  in  the  twilight.  And  then,  my  child, 
you'll  remember  this  evening;  that  I  foretold 
it  all  and  gave  you  my  blessing  in  advance  and 
—kissed  you."  lie  bent  over,  and  I  felt  his 
burning  lips  on  my  forehead. 

I  understood  hardly  a  word  of  what  he  said; 
but  whether  it  was  that  I  was  terrified  by  his 
picture  of  the  possible  insignificance  of  a  Baron 
de  Bergerac,  or  that  I  was  vaguely  overawed 
by  his  deep,  solemn  tones,  I  know  not ;  but  my 
eyes  very  quietly  began  to  emit  a  flood  of  tears. 
The  effect  of  my  grief  was  to  induce  him  to 
assure  me  that  he  had  no  present  intention  of 
leaving  me.  It  was  not,  of  course,  till  later  in 
life,  that,  thinking  over  the  situation,  I  under 
stood  his  impulse  to  arrest  his  hopeless  passion 


GABRIELLE    1)E    BERGERAC  91 

for  Mile,  de  Bergerac  by  immediate  departure. 
He  was  not  brave  in  time. 

At  the  end  of  a  week  she  returned  one  eve 
ning  as  we  were  at  supper.  She  came  in  with 
M.  de  Chalais,  an  amiable  old  man,  who  had 
been  so  kind  as  to  accompany  her.  She  greeted 
us  severally,  and  nodded  to  Coquelin.  She 
talked,  I  remember,  with  great  volubility,  re 
lating  what  she  had  seen  and  done  in  her  ab 
sence,  and  laughing  with  extraordinary  free 
dom.  As  we  left  the  table,  she  took  my  hand, 
and  I  put  out  the  other  and  took  Coquelin's. 

"Has  the  Chevalier  been  a  good  boy?"  she 
asked. 

"Perfect,"  said  Coquelin;  "but  he  has 
wranted  his  aunt  sadly." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  I,  resenting  the  imputa 
tion  as  derogatory  to  my  independence. 

"You  have  had  a  pleasant  week,  mademoi 
selle?"  said  Coquelin. 

"A  charming  week.    And  you?" 

"M.  Coquelin  has  been  very  unhappy,"  said 
I.  "He  thought  of  going  away." 


92  GABRIELHE    DE    BERGERAC 

"Ah?"  said  rny  aunt. 

Coquelin  was  silent. 

"You  think  of  going  away?" 

"I  merely  spoke  of  it,  mademoiselle.  I  must 
go  away  some  time,  you  know.  The  Chevalier 
looks  upon  me  as  something  eternal." 

"What's  eternal?"  asked  the  Chevalier. 

"There  is  nothing  eternal,  my  child,"  said 
Mile,  de  Bergerac.  "Nothing  lasts  more  than 
a  moment." 

"O,"  said  Coquelin,  "I  don't  agree  with 
you!" 

"You  don't  believe  that  in  this  world  every 
thing  is  vain  and  fleeting  and  transitory?" 

"By  no  means;  I  believe  in  the  permanence 
of  many  things." 

"Of  what,  for  instance?" 

"Well,  of  sentiments  and  passions." 

"Very  likely.  But  not  of  the  hearts  that 
hold  them.  'Lovers  die,  but  love  survives.'  I 
heard  a  gentleman  say  that  at  Chalais." 

"It's  better,  at  least,  than  if  he  had  put  it  the 
other  way.  But  lovers  last  too.  They  survive ; 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  93 

they  outlive  the  things  that  would  fain  destroy 
them, — indifference,  denial,  and  despair." 

"But  meanwhile  the  loved  object  disappears. 
When  it  isn't  one,  it's  the  other." 

"O,  I  admit  that  it's  a  shifting  world.  But 
I  have  a  philosophy  for  that." 

"I'm  curious  to  know  your  philosophy." 

"It's  a  very  old  one.  It's  simply  to  make  the 
most  of  life  while  it  lasts.  I'm  very  fond  of 
life,"  said  Coquelin,  laughing. 

"I  should  say  that  as  yet,  from  what  I  know 
of  your  history,  you  have  had  no  great  reason 
to  be." 

"Nay,  it's  like  a  cruel  mistress,"  said  Coque 
lin.  "When  once  you  love  her,  she's  absolute. 
Her  hard  usage  doesn't  affect  you.  And  cer 
tainly  I  have  nothing  to  complain  of  now." 

"You're  happy  here  then?" 

"Profoundly,  mademoiselle,  in  spite  of  the 
Chevalier." 

"I  should  suppose  that  with  your  tastes  you 
would  prefer  something  more  active,  more  ar 
dent." 


94  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 


"Mon  DieU;  my  tastes  are  very  simple.  And 
then  —  happiness,  cela  ne  se  raisonne  pas.  You 
don't  find  it  when  you  go  in  quest  of  it.  It's 
like  fortune;  it  comes  to  you  in  your  sleep." 

"I  imagine,"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac,  "that 
I  was  never  happy." 

"That's  a  sad  story,"  said  Coquelin. 

The  young  girl  began  to  laugh.  "And  never 
unhappy." 

"Dear  me,  that's  still  worse.  Never  fear,  it 
will  come." 

"What  will  come?" 

"That  which   is  both  bliss   and  misery  at 


once." 


Mile,  de  Bergerac  hesitated  a  moment. 
"And  what  is  this  strange  thing?"  she  asked. 

On  his  side  Coquelin  was  silent.  "When  it 
comes  to  you,"  he  said,  at  last,  "you'll  tell  me 
what  you  call  it." 

About  a  week  after  this,  at  breakfast,  in  pur 
suance  of  an  urgent  request  of  mine,  Coquelin 
proposed  to  my  father  to  allow  him  to  take  me 
to  visit  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  feudal  castle 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  95 

some  four  leagues  distant,  which  he  had  ob 
served  and  explored  while  he  trudged  across 
the  country  on  his  way  to  Bergerac,  and  which, 
indeed,  although  the  taste  for  ruins  was  at  that 
time  by  no  means  so  general  as  since  the  Revo 
lution  (when  one  may  say  it  was  in  a  measure 
created),  enjoyed  a  certain  notoriety  through 
out  the  province.  My  father  good-naturedly 
consented;  and  as  the  distance  wras  too  great 
to  be  achieved  on  foot,  he  placed  his  two  old 
coach-horses  at  our  service.  You  know  that 
although  I  affected,  in  boyish  sort,  to  have  been 
indifferent  to  my  aunt's  absence,  I  was  really 
very  fond  of  her,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  our 
excursion  would  be  more  solemn  and  splendid 
for  her  taking  part  in  it.  So  I  appealed  to  my 
father  and  asked  if  Mile,  de  Bergerac  might 
be  allowed  to  go  with  us.  What  the  Baron 
would  have  decided  had  he  been  left  to  himself 
I  know  not;  but  happily  for  our  cause  my 
mother  cried  out  that,  to  her  mind,  it  was 
highly  improper  that  her  sister-in-law  should 
travel  twenty  miles  alone  with  two  young  men. 


96  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

4 'One  of  your  young  men  is  a  child,"  said  my 
father,  "and  her  nephew  into  the  bargain;  and 
the  other," — and  he  laughed,  coarsely  but  not 
ill-humoredly,— -"the  other  is — Coquelin!" 

"Coquelin  is  not  a  child  nor  is  mademoiselle 
either,"  said  my  mother. 

"All  the  more  reason  for  their  going.  Ga- 
brielle,  will  you  go?"  My  father,  I  fear,  was 
not  remarkable  in  general  for  his  tenderness  or 
his  prevenance  for  the  poor  girl  whom  fortune 
had  given  him  to  protect ;  but  from  time  to  time 
he  would  wake  up  to  a  downright  sense  of  kin 
ship  and  duty,  kindled  by  the  pardonable  ag 
gressions  of  my  mother,  between  whom  and  her 
sister-in-law  there  existed  a  singular  antago 
nism  of  temper. 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  looked  at  my  father  in 
tently  and  with  a  little  blush.  "Yes,  brother, 
I'll  go.  The  Chevalier  can  take  me  en  croupe" 

So  we  started,  Coquelin  on  one  horse,  and  I 
on  the  other,  with  my  aunt  mounted  behind  me. 
Our  sport  for  the  first  part  of  the  journey  con 
sisted  chiefly  in  my  urging  my  beast  into  a 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  97 

somewhat  ponderous  gallop,  so  as  to  terrify 
my  aunt,  who  was  not  very  sure  of  her  seat, 
and  who,  at  moments,  between  pleading  and 
laughing,  had  hard  work  to  preserve  her  bal 
ance.  At  these  times  Coquelin  would  ride  close 
alongside  of  us,  at  the  same  cumbersome  pace, 
declaring  himself  ready  to  catch  the  young  girl 
if  she  fell.  In  this  way  we  jolted  along,  in  a 
cloud  of  dust,  with  shouts  and  laughter. 

"Madame  the  Baronne  was  wrong,"  said 
Coquelin,  "in  denying  that  we  are  children." 

"O,  this  is  nothing  yet,"  cried  my  aunt. 

The  castle  of  Fossy  lifted  its  dark  and  crum 
bling  towers  with  a  decided  air  of  feudal  arro 
gance  from  the  summit  of  a  gentle  eminence  in 
the  recess  of  a  shallow  gorge  among  the  hills. 
Exactly  when  it  had  flourished  and  when  it  had 
decayed  I  knew  not,  but  in  the  year  of  grace 
of  our  pilgrimage  it  was  a  truly  venerable, 
almost  a  formidable,  ruin.  Two  great  towers 
were  standing, — one  of  them  diminished  by 
half  its  upper  elevation,  and  the  other  sadly 
scathed  and  shattered,  but  still  exposing  its 


98  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

hoary  head  to  the  weather,  and  offering  the 
sullen  hospitality  of  its  empty  skull  to  a  colony 
of  swallows.  I  shall  never  forget  that  day  at 
Fossy;  it  was  one  of  those  long  raptures  of 
childhood  which  seem  to  imprint  upon  the  mind 
an  ineffaceable  stain  of  light.  The  novelty  and 
mystery  of  the  dilapidated  fortress, — its  antiq 
uity,  its  intricacy,  its  sounding  vaults  and 
corridors,  its  inaccessible  heights  and  impen 
etrable  depths,  the  broad  sunny  glare  of  its 
grass-grown  courts  and  yards,  the  twilight  of 
its  passages  and  midnight  of  its  dungeons,  and 
along  with  all  this  my  freedom  to  rove  and 
scramble,  my  perpetual  curiosity,  my  lusty 
absorption  of  the  sun-warmed  air,  and  the  con 
tagion  of  my  companions'  careless  and  sensu 
ous  mirth, — all  these  things  combined  to  make 
our  excursion  one  of  the  memorable  events  of 
my  youth.  My  two  companions  accepted  the 
situation  and  drank  in  the  beauty  of  the  day 
and  the  richness  of  the  spot  with  all  my  own 
reckless  freedom.  Coquelin  was  half  mad  with 
the  joy  of  spending  a  whole  unbroken  sum- 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  99 

mer's  day  with  the  woman  whom  he  secretly 
loved.  He  was  all  motion  and  humor  and  reso 
nant  laughter;  and  yet  intermingled  with  his 
random  gayety  there  lurked  a  solemn  sweet 
ness  and  reticence,  a  feverish  concentration  of 
thought,  which  to  a  woman  with  a  woman's 
senses  must  have  fairly  betrayed  his  passion. 
Mile,  de  Bergerac,  without  quite  putting  aside 
her  natural  dignity  and  gravity  of  mien,  lent 
herself  with  a  charming  girlish  energy  to  the 
undisciplined  spirit  of  the  hour. 

Our  first  thoughts,  after  Coquelin  had 
turned  the  horses  to  pasture  in  one  of  the 
grassy  courts  of  the  castle,  were  naturally  be 
stowed  upon  our  little  basket  of  provisions; 
and  our  first  act  was  to  sit  down  on  a  heap  of 
fallen  masonry  and  divide  its  contents.  After 
that  we  wandered.  We  climbed  the  still  prac 
ticable  staircases,  and  wedged  ourselves  into 
the  turrets  and  strolled  through  the  chambers 
and  halls;  we  started  from  their  long  repose 
every  echo  and  bat  and  owl  within  the  innumer 
able  walls. 


100  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

Finally,  after  we  had  rambled  a  couple  of 
hours,  Mile,  de  Bergerac  betrayed  signs  of 
fatigue.  Coquelin  went  with  her  in  search  of 
a  place  of  rest,  and  I  was  left  to  my  own  de 
vices.  For  an  hour  I  found  plenty  of  diver 
sion,  at  the  end  of  which  I  returned  to  my 
friends.  I  had  some  difficulty  in  finding  them. 
They  had  mounted  by  an  imperfect  and  some 
what  perilous  ascent  to  one  of  the  upper  plat 
forms  of  the  castle.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  was 
sitting  in  a  listless  posture  on  a  block  of  stone, 
against  the  wall,  in  the  shadow  of  the  still  sur 
viving  tower;  opposite,  in  the  light,  half  lean 
ing,  half  sitting  on  the  parapet  of  the  terrace, 
was  her  companion. 

"For  the  last  half -hour,  mademoiselle,"  said 
Coquelin,  as  I  came  up,  "you've  not  spoken  a 
word." 

"All  the  morning,"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac, 
"I've  been  scrambling  and  chattering  and 
laughing.  Now,  by  reaction,  I'm  triste" 

"I  protest,  so  am  I,"  said  Coquelin.  "The 
truth  is,  this  old  feudal  fortress  is  a  decidedly 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  101 

melancholy  spot.  It's  haunted  with  the  ghost 
of  the  past.  It  smells  of  tragedies,  sorrows, 
and  cruelties."  He  uttered  these  words  with 
singular  emphasis.  "It's  a  horrible  place,"  he 
pursued,  with  a  shudder. 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  began  to  laugh.  "It's  odd 
that  we  should  only  just  now  have  discovered 
it!" 

"No,  it's  like  the  history  of  that  abominable 
past  of  which  it's  a  relic.  At  the  first  glance 
we  see  nothing  but  the  great  proportions,  the 
show,  and  the  splendor;  but  when  we  come  to 
explore,  we  detect  a  vast  underground  world 
of  iniquity  and  suffering.  Only  half  this  castle 
is  above  the  soil;  the  rest  is  dungeons  and 
vaults  and  oubliettes." 

"Nevertheless,"  said  the  young  girl,  "I 
should  have  liked  to  live  in  those  old  days. 
Shouldn't  you?" 

"Verily,  no,  mademoiselle!"  And  then  after 
a  pause,  with  a  certain  irrepressible  bitterness : 
"Life  is  hard  enough  now." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  stared  but  said  nothing. 


102  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

"In  those  good  old  days/'  Coquelin  resumed, 
"I  should  have  been  a  brutal,  senseless  peas 
ant,  yoked  down  like  an  ox,  with  my  forehead 
in  the  soil.  Or  else  I  should  have  been  a  trem 
bling,  groaning,  fasting  monk,  moaning  my 
soul  away  in  the  ecstasies  of  faith." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  rose  and  came  to  the  edge 
of  the  platform.  "Was  no  other  career  open  in 
those  days?" 

"To  such  a  one  as  me, — no.  As  I  say,  made 
moiselle,  life  is  hard  now,  but  it  was  a  mere 
dead  weight  then.  I  know  it  was.  I  feel  in  my 
bones  and  pulses  that  awful  burden  of  despair 
under  which  my  wretched  ancestors  struggled. 
Tenez,  I'm  the  great  man  of  the  race.  My 
father  came  next;  he  was  one  of  four  brothers, 
who  all  thought  it  a  prodigious  rise  in  the 
world  when  he  became  a  village  tailor.  If  we 
had  lived  five  hundred  years  ago,  in  the  shadow 
of  these  great  towers,  we  should  never  have 
risen  at  all.  We  should  have  stuck  with  our 
feet  in  the  clay.  As  I'm  not  a  fighting  man,  I 
suppose  I  should  have  gone  into  the  Church. 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  103 

If  I  hadn't  died  from  an  overdose  of  inanition, 
very  likely  I  might  have  lived  to  be  a  cardinal." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  leaned  against  the  para 
pet,  and  with  a  meditative  droop  of  the  head 
looked  down  the  little  glen  toward  the  plain 
and  the  highway.  'Tor  myself,"  she  said,  "I 
can  imagine  very  charming  things  of  life  in 
this  castle  of  Fossy." 

"For  yourself,  very  likely." 

"Fancy  the  great  moat  below  filled  with 
water  and  sheeted  with  lilies,  and  the  draw 
bridge  lowered,  and  a  company  of  knights  rid 
ing  into  the  gates.  Within,  in  one  of  those 
vaulted,  quaintly  timbered  rooms,  the  chate 
laine  stands  ready  to  receive  them,  with  her 
women,  her  chaplain,  her  physician,  and  her 
little  page.  They  come  clanking  up  the  stair 
case,  with  ringing  swords,  sweeping  the  ground 
with  their  plumes.  They  are  all  brave  and 
splendid  and  fierce,  but  one  of  them  far  more 
than  the  rest.  They  each  bend  a  knee  to  the 
lady—" 

"But  he  bends  two,"  cried  Coquelin.    "They 


104  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

wander  apart  into  one  of  those  deep  embra 
sures  and  spin  the  threads  of  perfect  love.  Ah, 
I  could  fancy  a  sweet  life,  in  those  days,  made 
moiselle,  if  I  could  only  fancy  myself  a 
knight!" 

"And  you  can't,"  said  the  young  girl,  grave 
ly,  looking  at  him. 

"It's  an  idle  game;  it's  not  worth  trying." 

"Apparently  then,  you're  a  cynic;  you  have 
an  equally  small  opinion  of  the  past  and  the 
present." 

"No;  you  do  me  injustice." 

"But  you  say  that  life  is  hard." 

"I  speak  not  for  myself,  but  for  others;  for 
my  brothers  and  sisters  and  kinsmen  in  all  de 
grees  ;  for  the  great  mass  of  petits  gens  of  my 
own  class." 

"Dear  me,  M.  Coquelin,  while  you're  about 
it,  you  can  speak  for  others  still;  for  poor  por 
tionless  girls,  for  instance." 

"Are  they  very  much  to  be  pitied?" 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  was  silent.  "After  all," 
she  resumed,  "they  oughtn't  to  complain." 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  105 

"Not  when  they  have  a  great  name  and 
beauty,"  said  Coquelin. 

"O  heaven!"  said  the  young  girl,  impa 
tiently,  and  turned  away.  Coquelin  stood 
watching  her,  his  brow  contracted,  his  lips 
parted.  Presently,  she  came  back.  "Perhaps 
you  think,"  she  said,  "that  I  care  for  my  name, 
—my  great  name,  as  you  call  it." 

"Assuredly,  I  do." 

She  stood  looking  at  him,  blushing  a  little 
and  frowning.  As  he  said  these  words,  she 
gave  an  impatient  toss  of  the  head  and  turned 
away  again.  In  her  hand  she  carried  an  orna 
mented  fan,  an  antiquated  and  sadly  dilapi 
dated  instrument.  She  suddenly  raised  it 
above  her  head,  swung  it  a  moment,  and  threw 
it  far  across  the  parapet.  "There  goes  the 
name  of  Bergerac!"  she  said;  and  sweeping 
round,  made  the  young  man  a  very  low  cour 
tesy. 

There  was  in  the  whole  action  a  certain  pas 
sionate  freedom  which  set  poor  Coquelin's 
heart  a- throbbing.  "To  have  a  good  name, 


106  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

mademoiselle,"  he  said,  "and  to  be  indifferent 
to  it,  is  the  sign  of  a  noble  mind."  (In  paren 
thesis,  I  may  say  that  I  think  he  was  quite 
wrong. ) 

"It's  quite  as  noble,  monsieur,"  returned  my 
aunt,  "to  have  a  small  name  and  not  to  blush 
for  it." 

With  these  words  I  fancy  they  felt  as  if  they 
had  said  enough ;  the  conversation  was  growing 
rather  too  pointed. 

"I  think,"  said  my  aunt,  "that  we  had  better 
prepare  to  go."  And  she  cast  a  farewell  glance 
at  the  broad  expanse  of  country  which  lay 
stretched  out  beneath  us,  striped  with  the  long 
afternoon  shadows. 

Coquelin  followed  the  direction  of  her  eyes. 
"I  wish  very  much,"  he  said,  "that  before  we 
go  we  might  be  able  to  make  our  way  up  into 
the  summit  of  the  great  tower.  It  would  be 
worth  the  attempt.  The  view  from  here, 
charming  as  it  is,  must  be  only  a  fragment  of 
what  you  see  from  that  topmost  platform." 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  107 

"It's  not  likely,"  said  my  aunt,  "that  the 
staircase  is  still  in  a  state  to  be  used." 

"Possibly  not;  but  we  can  see." 

"Nay,"  insisted  my  aunt,  "I'm  afraid  to 
trust  the  Chevalier.  There  are  great  breaches 
in  the  sides  of  the  ascent,  which  are  so  many 
open  doors  to  destruction." 

I  strongly  opposed  this  view  of  the  case ;  but 
Coquelin,  after  scanning  the  elevation  of  the 
tower  and  such  of  the  fissures  as  were  visible 
from  our  standpoint,  declared  that  my  aunt 
was  right  and  that  it  was  my  duty  to  comply. 
"And  you,  too,  mademoiselle,"  he  said,  "had 
better  not  try  it,  unless  you  pride  yourself  on 
your  strong  head." 

"No,  indeed,  I  have  a  particularly  weak  one. 
And  you?" 

"I  confess  I'm  very  curious  to  see  the  view. 
I  always  want  to  read  to  the  end  of  a  book,  to 
walk  to  the  turn  of  a  road,  and  to  climb  to  the 
top  of  a  building." 

"Good,"  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac.  "We'll 
wait  for  you." 


108  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

Although  in  a  straight  line  from  the  spot 
which  we  occupied,  the  distance  through  the 
air  to  the  rugged  sides  of  the  great  cylinder 
of  masonry  which  frowned  above  us  was  not 
more  than  thirty  yards,  Coquelin  was  obliged, 
in  order  to  strike  at  the  nearest  accessible  point 
the  winding  staircase  which  clung  to  its  mas 
sive  ribs,  to  retrace  his  steps  through  the  inte 
rior  of  the  castle  and  make  a  detour  of  some 
five  minutes'  duration.  In  ten  minutes  more 
he  showed  himself  at  an  aperture  in  the  wall, 
facing  our  terrace. 

"How  do  you  prosper?"  cried  my  aunt,  rais 
ing  her  voice. 

"I've  mounted  eighty  steps,"  he  shouted; 
"I've  a  hundred  more."  Presently  he  ap 
peared  again  at  another  opening.  "The  steps 
have  stopped,"  he  cried. 

"You've  only  to  stop  too,"  rejoined  Mile,  de 
Bergerac.  Again  he  was  lost  to  sight  and  we 
supposed  he  was  returning.  A  quarter  of  an 
hour  elapsed,  and  we  began  to  wonder  at  his 
not  having  overtaken  us,  when  we  heard  a  loud 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  109 

call  high  above  our  heads.  There  he  stood,  on 
the  summit  of  the  edifice,  waving  his  hat.  At 
this  point  he  was  so  far  above  us  that  it  was 
difficult  to  communicate  by  sounds,  in  spite  of 
our  curiosity  to  know  how,  in  the  absence  of 
a  staircase,  he  had  effected  the  rest  of  the  as 
cent.  He  began  to  represent,  by  gestures  of 
pretended  rapture,  the  immensity  and  beauty 
of  the  prospect.  Finally  Mile,  de  Bergerac 
beckoned  to  him  to  descend,  and  pointed  to  the 
declining  sun,  informing  him  at  the  same  time 
that  we  would  go  down  and  meet  him  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  castle.  We  left  the  terrace 
accordingly,  and,  making  the  best  of  our  way 
through  the  intricate  passages  of  the  edifice,  at 
last,  not  without  a  feeling  of  relief,  found  our 
selves  on  the  level  earth.  We  waited  quite  half 
an  hour  without  seeing  anything  of  our  com 
panion.  My  aunt,  I  could  see,  had  become 
anxious,  although  she  endeavored  to  appear  at 
her  ease.  As  the  time  elapsed,  however,  it  be 
came  so  evident  that  Coquelin  had  encountered 
some  serious  obstacle  to  his  descent,  that  Mile. 


110  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

de  Bergerac  pro]>osed  we  should,  in  so  far  as 
was  possible,  betake  ourselves  to  bis  assistance. 
The  point  was  to  approach  him  within  speak 
ing  distance. 

We  entered  the  body  of  the  castle  again, 
climbed  to  one  of  the  upper  levels,  and  reached 
a  spot  where  an  extensive  destruction  of  the 
external  wall  partially  exposed  the  great 
tower.  As  we  approached  this  crumbling 
breach,  Mile,  de  Bergerac  drew  back  from  its 
brink  with  a  loud  cry  of  horror.  It  was  not 
long  before  I  discerned  the  cause  of  her  move 
ment.  The  side  of  the  tower  visible  from  where 
we  stood  presented  a  vast  yawning  fissure, 
which  explained  the  interruption  of  the  stair 
case,  the  latter  having  fallen  for  want  of  sup 
port.  The  central  column,  to  which  the  steps 
had  been  fastened,  seemed,  nevertheless,  still 
to  be  erect,  and  to  have  formed,  with  the  ag 
glomeration  of  fallen  fragments  and  various 
occasional  projections  of  masonry,  the  means 
by  which  Coquelin,  with  extraordinary  courage 
and  skill,  had  reached  the  topmost  platform. 


GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC  111 

The  ascent,  then,  had  been  possible;  the  de 
scent,  curiously  enough,  he  seemed  to  have 
found  another  matter;  and  after  striving  in 
vain  to  retrace  his  footsteps,  had  been  obliged 
to  commit  himself  to  the  dangerous  experiment 
of  passing  from  the  tower  to  the  external  sur 
face  of  the  main  fortress.  lie  had  accom 
plished  half  his  journey  and  now  stood  directly 
over  against  us  in  a  posture  which  caused  my 
young  limbs  to  stiffen  with  dismay.  The  point 
to  which  he  had  directed  himself  was  appar 
ently  the  breach  at  which  we  stood;  meanwhile 
he  had  paused,  clinging  in  mid-air  to  heaven 
knows  what  narrow  ledge  or  flimsy  iron  clump 
in  the  stone-work,  and  straining  his  nerves  to 
an  agonized  tension  in  the  effort  not  to  fall, 
while  his  eyes  vaguely  wandered  in  quest  of 
another  footing.  The  wall  of  the  castle  wras  so 
immensely  thick,  that  wherever  he  could  em 
brace  its  entire  section,  progress  was  com 
paratively  easy;  the  more  especially  as,  above 
our  heads,  this  same  wall  had  been  demolished 
in  such  a  way  as  to  maintain  a  rapid  upward 


112  GABRIELLE    DE    BEKGERAC 

inclination  to  the  point  where  it  communicated 
with  the  tower. 

I  stood  staring  at  Coquelin  with  my  heart  in 
my  throat,  forgetting  (or  rather  too  young  to 
reflect)  that  the  sudden  shock  of  seeing  me 
where  I  was  might  prove  fatal  to  his  equipoise. 
lie  perceived  me,  however,  and  tried  to  smile. 
"'Don't  be  afraid,"  he  cried,  "I'll  he  with  you 
in  a  moment."  My  aunt,  who  had  fallen  back, 
returned  to  the  aperture,  and  gazed  at  him  with 
pale  cheeks  and  clasped  hands.  lie  made  a 
long  step  forward,  successfully,  and,  as  he  re 
covered  himself,  caught  sight  of  her  face  and 
looked  at  her  with  fearful  intentness.  Then 
seeing,  I  suppose,  that  she  was  sickened  by  his 
insecurity,  he  disengaged  one  hand  and  mo 
tioned  her  back.  She  retreated,  paced  in  a  sin 
gle  moment  the  length  of  the  enclosure  in  which 
we  stood,  returned  and  stopped  just  short  of 
the  point  at  which  she  would  have  seen  him 
again.  She  buried  her  face  in  her  hands,  like 
one  muttering  a  rapid  prayer,  and  then  ad 
vanced  once  more  within  range  of  her  friend's 


GABRIELLE    DE    BKRGERAC  113 

vision.  As  she  looked  at  him,  clinging  in  mid 
air  and  planting  step  after  step  on  the  jagged 
and  treacherous  edge  of  the  immense  perpen 
dicular  chasm,  she  repressed  another  loud  cry 
only  by  thrusting  her  handkerchief  into  her 
mouth.  He  caught  her  eyes  again,  gazed  into 
them  with  piercing  keenness,  as  if  to  drink  in 
coolness  and  confidence,  arid  then,  as  she  closed 
them  again  in  horror,  motioned  me  with  his 
head  to  lead  her  away.  She  returned  to  the 
farther  end  of  the  apartment  and  leaned  her 
head  against  the  wall.  I  remained  staring  at 
poor  Coquelin,  fascinated  by  the  spectacle  of 
his  mingled  danger  and  courage.  Inch  by  inch, 
yard  by  yard,  I  saw  him  lessen  the  interval 
which  threatened  his  life.  It  was  a  horrible, 
beautiful  sight.  Some  five  minutes  elapsed; 
they  seemed  like  fifty.  The  last  few  yards  he 
accomplished  with  a  rush ;  he  reached  the  win 
dow  which  was  the  goal  of  his  efforts,  swrung 
himself  in  and  let  himself  down  by  a  prodigious 
leap  to  the  level  on  which  we  stood.  Here  he 
stopped,  pale,  lacerated,  and  drenched  with 


lit  GAIUUKLLK    1)E    BEKGERAC 

perspiration.  lie  put  out  his  hand  to  Mile,  de 
Bcrgerac,  who,  at  the  sound  of  his  steps,  had 
turned  herself  about.  On  seeing  him  she  made 
a  few  steps  forward  and  burst  into  tears.  I 
took  his  extended  hand.  lie  bent  over  me  and 
kissed  me,  and  then  giving  me  a  push,  "Go  and 
kiss  your  poor  aunt,"  he  said.  Mile,  de  Ber- 
gerac  elasped  me  to  her  breast  with  a  most  con- 
vulsive  pressure.  From  that  moment  till  we 
reaehed  home,  there  was  very  little  said.  Both 
my  companions  had  matter  for  silent  reflec- 
tion, — Mile,  de  Bergerac  in  the  deep  signifi 
cance  of  that  offered  hand,  and  Coquelin  in  the 
rich  avowal  of  her  tears. 


PART  III 

A  WEEK  after  this  memorable  visit  to 
Fossy,  in  emulation  of  my  good  pre 
ceptor,  I  treated  my  friends,  or  my 
self  at  least,  to  a  five  minutes'  fright. 
Wandering  beside  the  river  one  day  when  Co- 
quelin  had  been  detained  within  doors  to  over 
look  some  accounts  for  my  father,  I  amused 
myself,  where  the  bank  projected  slightly  over 
the  stream,  with  kicking  the  earth  away  in 
fragments,  and  watching  it  borne  dowrn  the 
current.  The  result  may  be  anticipated:  I  came 
very  near  going  the  way  of  those  same  frag 
ments.  I  lost  my  foothold  and  fell  into  the 
stream,  which,  however,  was  so  shallow  as  to 
offer  no  great  obstacle  to  self-preservation.  I 
scrambled  ashore,  wet  to  the  bone,  and,  feeling 
rather  ashamed  of  my  misadventure,  skulked 
about  in  the  fields  for  a  couple  of  hours,  in  my 
dripping  clothes.  Finally,  there  being  no  sun 

115 


116  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

and  my  garments  remaining  inexorably  damp, 
my  teeth  began  to  chatter  and  my  limbs  to  ache. 
I  went  home  and  surrendered  myself.  Here 
again  the  result  may  be  foreseen:  the  next  day 
I  was  laid  up  with  a  high  fever. 

Mile,  de  Bergerac,  as  I  afterwards  learned, 
immediately  appointed  herself  my  nurse,  re 
moved  me  from  my  little  sleeping-closet  to  her 
own  room,  and  watched  me  with  the  most  ten 
der  care.  My  illness  lasted  some  ten  days,  my 
convalescence  a  week.  When  I  began  to  mend, 
my  bed  was  transferred  to  an  unoccupied  room 
adjoining  my  aunt's.  Here,  late  one  after 
noon,  I  lay  languidly  singing  to  myself  and 
watching  the  western  sunbeams  shimmering  on 
the  opposite  wall.  If  you  were  ever  ill  as  a 
child,  you  will  remember  such  moments.  You 
look  by  the  hour  at  your  thin,  white  hands ;  you 
listen  to  the  sounds  in  the  house,  the  opening 
of  doors  and  the  tread  of  feet;  you  murmur 
strange  odds  and  ends  of  talk;  and  you  watch 
the  fading  of  the  day  and  the  dark  flowering 
of  the  night.  Presently  my  aunt  came  in,  in- 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  117 

troducing  Coquelin,  whom  she  left  by  my  bed 
side.  He  sat  with  me  a  long  time,  talking  in 
the  old,  kind  way,  and  gradually  lulled  me  to 
sleep  with  the  gentle  murmur  of  his  voice. 
When  I  awoke  again  it  was  night.  The  sun 
was  quenched  on  the  opposite  wall,  but  through 
a  window  on  the  same  side  came  a  broad  ray  of 
moonlight.  In  the  window  sat  Coquelin,  who 
had  apparently  not  left  the  room.  Near  him 
was  Mile,  de  Bergerac. 

Some  time  elapsed  between  my  becoming 
conscious  of  their  presence  and  my  distinguish 
ing  the  sense  of  the  words  that  were  passing 
between  them.  When  I  did  so,  if  I  had  reached 
the  age  when  one  ponders  and  interprets  what 
one  hears,  I  should  readily  have  perceived  that 
since  those  last  thrilling  moments  at  Fossy 
their  friendship  had  taken  a  very  long  step, 
and  that  the  secret  of  each  heart  had  changed 
place  with  its  mate.  But  even  now  there  was 
little  that  was  careless  and  joyous  in  their 
young  love;  the  first  words  of  Mile.  Bergerac 


118  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

that  I  distinguished  betrayed  the  sombre  tinge 
of  their  passion. 

"I  don't  care  what  happens  now,"  she  said. 
"It  will  always  be  something  to  have  lived 
through  these  days." 

"You're  stronger  than  I,  then,"  said  Coque- 
lin.  "1  haven't  the  courage  to  defy  the  future. 
I'm  afraid  to  think  of  it.  Ah,  why  can't  we 
make  a  future  of  our  own?" 

"It  would  be  a  greater  happiness  than  we 
have  a  right  to.  Who  are  you,  Pierre  Coque- 
lin,  that  you  should  claim  the  right  to  marry 
the  girl  you  love,  when  she's  a  demoiselle  de 
Bergerac  to  begin  with?  And  who  am  I,  that 
I  should  expect  to  have  deserved  a  greater 
blessing  than  that  one  look  of  your  eyes,  which 
I  shall  never,  never  forget?  It  is  more  than 
enough  to  watch  you  and  pray  for  you  and 
worship  you  in  silence." 

"What  am  I?  what  are  you?  We  are  two 
honest  mortals,  who  have  a  perfect  right  to 
repudiate  the  blessings  of  God.  If  ever  a  pas 
sion  deserved  its  reward,  mademoiselle,  it's  the 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  119 

absolute  love  I  bear  you.  It's  not  a  spasm,  a 
miracle,  or  a  delusion;  it's  the  most  natural 
emotion  of  my  nature." 

"We  don't  live  in  a  natural  world,  Coquelin. 
If  we  did,  there  would  be  no  need  of  concealing 
this  divine  affection.  Great  heaven!  who's 
natural?  Is  it  my  sister-in-law?  Is  it  M.  de 
Treuil?  Is  it  my  brother?  My  brother  is 
sometimes  so  natural  that  he's  brutal.  Is  it  I 
myself?  There  are  moments  when  I'm  afraid 
of  my  nature." 

It  was  too  dark  for  me  to  distinguish  my 
companions'  faces  in  the  course  of  this  singular 
dialogue;  but  it's  not  hard  to  imagine  how,  as 
my  aunt  uttered  these  words,  with  a  burst  of 
sombre  naivete,  her  lover  must  have  turned 
upon  her  face  the  puzzled  brightness  of  his 
eyes. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked. 

"Mon  Dieu!  think  how  I  have  lived!  What 
a  senseless,  thoughtless,  passionless  life!  What 
solitude,  ignorance,  and  languor!  What  triv 
ial  duties  and  petty  joys!  I  have  fancied  my- 


120  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

self  happy  at  times,  for  it  was  God's  mercy 
that  I  didn't  know  what  I  lacked.  But  now 
that  my  soul  begins  to  stir  and  throb  and  live, 
it  shakes  me  with  its  mighty  pulsations.  I  feel 
as  if  in  the  mere  wantonness  of  strength  and 
joy  it  might  drive  me  to  some  extravagance. 
I  seem  to  feel  myself  making  a  great  rush, 
with  my  eyes  closed  and  my  heart  in  my  throat. 
And  then  the  earth  sinks  away  from  under 
my  feet,  and  in  my  ears  is  the  sound  of  a  dread 
ful  tumult." 

"Evidently  we  have  very  different  ways  of 
feeling.  For  you  our  love  is  action,  passion; 
for  me  it's  rest.  For  you  it's  romance;  for  me 
it's  reality.  For  me  it's  a  necessity;  for  you 
(how  shall  I  say  it?)  it's  a  luxury.  In  point 
of  fact,  mademoiselle,  how  should  it  be  other 
wise?  When  a  demoiselle  de  Bergerac  bestows 
her  heart  upon  an  obscure  adventurer,  a  man 
born  in  poverty  and  servitude,  it's  a  matter  of 
charity,  of  noble  generosity." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  received  this  speech  in  si 
lence,  and  for  some  moments  nothing  was  said. 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  121 

At  last  she  resumed:  "After  all  that  has  passed 
between  us,  Coquelin,  it  seems  to  me  a  matter 
neither  of  generosity  nor  of  charity  to  allude 
again  to  that  miserable  fact  of  my  birth." 

"I  was  only  trying  to  carry  out  your  own 
idea,  and  to  get  at  the  truth  with  regard  to  our 
situation.  If  our  love  is  worth  a  straw,  we 
needn't  be  afraid  of  that.  Isn't  it  true — bless 
edly  true,  perhaps,  for  all  I  know — that  you 
shrink  a  little  from  taking  me  as  I  am?  Ex 
cept  for  my  character,  I'm  so  little!  It's  im 
possible  to  be  less  of  a  personage.  You  can't 
quite  reconcile  it  to  your  dignity  to  love  a  no 
body,  so  you  fling  over  your  weakness  a  veil 
of  mystery  and  romance  and  exaltation.  You 
regard  your  passion,  perhaps,  as  more  of  an 
escapade,  an  adventure,  than  it  needs  to  be." 

"My  'nobody,'  '  said  Mile,  de  Bergerac, 
gently,  "is  a  very  wise  man,  and  a  great  phi 
losopher.  I  don't  understand  a  word  you  say." 

"Ah,  so  much  the  better!"  said  Coquelin  with 
a  little  laugh. 

"Will  you  promise  me,"  pursued  the  young 


122  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

girl,  "never  again  by  word  or  deed  to  allude 
to  the  difference  of  our  birth?  If  you  refuse, 
I  shall  consider  you  an  excellent  pedagogue, 
but  no  lover." 

"Will  you  in  return  promise  me— 

"Promise  you  what?" 

Coquelin  was  standing  before  her,  looking 
at  her,  with  folded  arms.  "Promise  me  like 
wise  to  forget  it!" 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  stared  a  moment,  and  also 
rose  to  her  feet.  "Forget  it!  Is  this  gener 
ous?"  she  cried.  "Is  it  delicate?  I  had  pretty 
well  forgot  it,  I  think,  on  that  dreadful  day 
at  Fossy!"  Her  voice  trembled  and  swelled; 
she  burst  into  tears.  Coquelin  attempted  to  re 
monstrate,  but  she  motioned  him  aside,  and 
swept  out  of  the  room. 

It  must  have  been  a  very  genuine  passion 
between  these  two,  you'll  observe,  to  allow  this 
handling  without  gloves.  Only  a  plant  of 
hardy  growth  could  have  endured  this  chilling 
blast  of  discord  and  disputation.  Ultimately, 
indeed,  its  effect  seemed  to  have  been  to  fortify 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  123 

and  consecrate  their  love.  This  was  apparent 
several  days  later;  but  I  know  not  what  man 
ner  of  communication  they  had  had  in  the  in 
terval.  I  was  much  better,  but  I  was  still  weak 
and  languid.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  brought  me 
my  breakfast  in  bed,  and  then,  having  helped 
me  to  rise  and  dress,  led  me  out  into  the  garden, 
where  she  had  caused  a  chair  to  be  placed  in 
the  shade.  While  I  sat  watching  the  bees  and 
butterflies,  and  pulling  the  flowers  to  pieces, 
she  strolled  up  and  down  the  alley  close  at 
hand,  taking  slow  stitches  in  a  piece  of  em 
broidery.  We  had  been  so  occupied  about  ten 
minutes,  when  Coquelin  came  towards  us  from 
his  lodge, — by  appointment,  evidently,  for  this 
was  a  roundabout  way  to  the  house.  Mile,  de 
Bergerac  met  him  at  the  end  of  the  path,  where 
I  could  not  hear  what  they  said,  but  only  see 
their  gestures.  As  they  came  along  together, 
she  raised  both  hands  to  her  ears,  and  shook 
her  head  with  vehemence,  as  if  to  refuse  to 
listen  to  what  he  was  urging.  When  they  drew 


124  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

near  my  resting-place,  she  had  interrupted 
him. 

"No,  no,  no!"  she  cried,  "I  will  never  forget 
it  to  my  dying  day.  How  should  I  ?  How  can 
I  look  at  you  without  remembering  it?  It's  in 
your  face,  your  figure,  your  movements,  the 
tones  of  your  voice.  It's  you, — it's  what  I  love 
in  you!  It  was  that  which  went  through  my 
heart  that  day  at  Fossy.  It  was  the  look,  the 
tone,  with  which  you  called  the  place  horrible; 
it  was  your  bitter  plebeian  hate.  When  you 
spoke  of  the  misery  and  baseness  of  your  race, 
I  could  have  cried  out  in  an  anguish  of  love! 
When  I  contradicted  you,  and  pretended  that 
I  prized  and  honored  all  these  tokens  of  your 
servitude, — just  heaven!  you  know  now  what 
my  words  were  worth!" 

Coquelin  walked  beside  her  with  his  hands 
clasped  behind  him,  and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the 
ground  with  a  look  of  repressed  sensibility. 
He  passed  his  poor  little  convalescent  pupil 
without  heeding  him.  When  they  came  down 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  125 

the  path  again,  the  young  girl  was  still  talk 
ing  with  the  same  feverish  volubility. 

"But  most  of  all,  the  first  day,  the  first  hour, 
when  you  came  up  the  avenue  to  my  brother! 
I  had  never  seen  any  one  like  you.  I  had  seen 
others,  but  you  had  something  that  went  to  my 
soul.  I  devoured  you  with  my  eyes, — your 
dusty  clothes,  your  uncombed  hair,  your  pale 
face,  the  way  you  held  yourself  not  to  seem 
tired.  I  went  down  on  my  knees,  then;  I 
haven't  been  up  since." 

The  poor  girl,  you  see,  was  completely  pos 
sessed  by  her  passion,  and  yet  she  was  in  a 
very  strait  place.  For  her  life  she  wouldn't 
recede;  and  yet  how  was  she  to  advance? 
There  must  have  been  an  odd  sort  of  sim 
plicity  in  her  way  of  bestowing  her  love;  or 
perhaps  you'll  think  it  an  odd  sort  of  subtlety. 
It  seems  plain  to  me  now,  as  I  tell  the  story, 
that  Coquelin,  with  his  perfect  good  sense,  was 
right,  and  that  there  was,  at  this  moment,  a 
large  element  of  romance  in  the  composition 
of  her  feelings.  She  seemed  to  feel  no  desire 


126  GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 

to  realize  her  passion.  Her  hand  was  already 
bestowed;  fate  was  inexorable.  She  wished 
simply  to  compress  a  world  of  bliss  into  her 
few  remaining  hours  of  freedom. 

The  day  after  this  interview  in  the  garden 
I  came  down  to  dinner;  on  the  next  I  sat  up 
to  supper,  and  for  some  time  afterwards, 
thanks  to  my  aunt's  preoccupation  of  mind. 
On  rising  from  the  table,  my  father  left  the 
chateau;  my  mother,  who  was  ailing,  returned 
to  her  room.  Coquelin  disappeared,  under  pre 
tence  of  going  to  his  own  apartments;  but, 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  having  taken  me  into  the 
drawing-room  and  detained  me  there  some 
minutes,  he  shortly  rejoined  us. 

"Great  heaven,  mademoiselle,  this  must 
end!"  he  cried,  as  he  came  into  the  room.  "I 
can  stand  it  no  longer." 

"Nor  can  I,"  said  my  aunt.  "But  I  have 
given  my  word." 

"Take  back  your  word,  then!  Write  him  a 
letter — go  to  him — send  me  to  him — anything! 
I  can't  stay  here  on  the  footing  of  a  thief  and 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  12? 

impostor.  I'll  do  anything,"  he  continued,  as 
she  was  silent.  "I'll  go  to  him  in  person;  I'll 
go  to  your  brother;  I'll  go  to  your  sister  even. 
I'll  proclaim  it  to  the  world.  Or,  if  you  don't 
like  that,  I'll  keep  it  a  mortal  secret.  I'll  leave 
the  chateau  with  you  without  an  hour's  delay. 
I'll  defy  pursuit  and  discovery.  We'll  go  to 
America, — anywhere  you  wish,  if  it's  only  ac 
tion.  Only  spare  me  the  agony  of  seeing  you 
drift  along  into  that  man's  arms." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  made  no  reply  for  some 
moments.  At  last,  "I  will  never  marry  M.  de 
Treuil,"  she  said. 

To  this  declaration  Coquelin  made  no  re 
sponse;  but  after  a  pause,  "Well,  well,  well?" 
he  cried. 

"Ah,  you're  pitiless!"  said  the  young  girl. 

"No,  mademoiselle,  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart  I  pity  you." 

"Well,  then,  think  of  all  you  ask !  Think  of 
the  inexpiable  criminality  of  my  love.  Think 
of  me  standing  here, — here  before  my  mother's 
portrait, — murmuring  out  my  shame,  scorched 


128  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

by  my  sister's  scorn,  buffeted  by  my  brother's 
curses!  Gracious  heaven,  Coquelin,  suppose 
after  all  I  were  a  bad,  hard  girl!" 

"I'll  suppose  nothing;  this  is  no  time  for 
hair-splitting."  And  then,  after  a  pause,  as  if 
with  a  violent  effort,  in  a  voice  hoarse  and  yet 
soft:  "Gabrielle,  passion  is  blind.  Reason 
alone  is  worth  a  straw.  I'll  not  counsel  you  in 
passion,  let  us  wait  till  reason  comes  to  us." 
He  put  out  his  hand;  she  gave  him  her  own; 
he  pressed  it  to  his  lips  and  departed. 

On  the  following  day,  as  I  still  professed 
myself  too  weak  to  resume  my  books,  Coque 
lin  left  the  chateau  alone,  after  breakfast,  for 
a  long  walk.  He  was  going,  I  suppose,  into 
the  woods  and  meadows  in  quest  of  Reason. 
She  was  hard  to  find,  apparently,  for  he  failed 
to  return  to  dinner.  He  reappeared,  however, 
at  supper,  but  now  my  father  was  absent.  My 
mother,  as  she  left  the  table,  expressed  the  wish 
that  Mile,  de  Bergerac  should  attend  her  to 
her  own  room.  Coquelin,  meanwhile,  went 
with  me  into  the  great  saloon,  and  for  half 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  129 

an  hour  talked  to  me  gravely  and  kindly  about 
my  studies,  and  questioned  me  on  what  we  had 
learned  before  my  illness.  At  the  end  of  this 
time  Mile,  de  Bergerac  returned. 

"I  got  this  letter  to-day  from  M.  de  Treuil," 
she  said,  and  offered  him  a  missive  which  had 
apparently  been  handed  to  her  since  dinner. 

"I  don't  care  to  read  it,"  he  said. 

She  tore  it  across  and  held  the  pieces  to  the 
flame  of  the  candle.  "He  is  to  be  here  to 
morrow,"  she  added  finally. 

"Well?"  asked  Coquelin  gravely. 

"You  know  my  answer." 

"Your  answer  to  him,  perfectly.  But  what 
is  your  answer  to  me?" 

She  looked  at  him  in  silence.     They  stood 
for  a  minute,  their  eyes  locked  together.    And 
then,  in  the  same  posture,— her  arms  loose  at 
her  sides,  her  head  slightly  thrown  back,- 
"To  you,"  she  said,  "my  answer  is— farewell." 

The  word  was  little  more  than  whispered; 
but,  though  he  heard  it,  he  neither  started  nor 
spoke.  He  stood  unmoved,  all  his  soul  trem- 


L'3()  GAliUIELLE    I)E    BEKGEKAT 

bling  under  liis  brows  and  filling  the  space  be 
tween  bis  mistress  and  himself  with  a  sort  of 
sacred  stillness.  Then,  gradually,  his  bead 
sank  on  his  breast,  and  his  eyes  dropped  on  the 
ground. 

"It's  reason,11  the  young  girl  began.  "Rea 
son  has  come  to  me.  She  tells  me  that  if  I 
marry  in  my  brother's  despite,  and  in  opposi 
tion  to  all  the  traditions  that  have  been  kept 
sacred  in  my  family,  I  shall  neither  find  happi 
ness  nor  give  it.  I  must  choose  the  simplest 
course.  The  other  is  a  gulf;  I  can't  leap  it. 
It's  harder  than  you  think.  Something  in  the 
air  forbids  it, — something  in  the  very  look  of 
these  old  walls,  within  which  I  was  born  and 
I've  lived.  I  shall  never  marry;  I  shall  go  into 
religion.  I  tried  to  fling  away  my  name;  it  was 
sowing  dragons'  teeth.  I  don't  ask  you  to 
forgive  me.  It's  small  enough  comfort  that 
you  should  have  the  right  to  think  of  me  as 
a  poor,  weak  heart.  Keep  repeating  that:  it 
will  console  you.  I  shall  not  have  the  compen- 


(JABHIELLE    1)E    BEUGEUAC  131 

sation  of  doubting  the  perfection  of  what  I 

1> » 
ove. 

Coquelin  turned  away  in  silence.  Mile,  de 
Ik-rgerae  sprang  after  him.  "In  Heaven's 
name,"  she  cried,  "say  something!  Have, 
storm,  swear,  but  don't  let  me  think  I've 
broken  your  heart." 

"My  heart's  sound/'  said  Coquelin,  almost 
with  a  smile.  "I  regret  nothing  that  has  hap 
pened.  O,  how  I  love  you!' 

The  young  girl  buried  her  face  in  her  hands. 

"This  end,"  he  went  on,  "is  doubtless  the 
only  possible  one.  It's  thinking  very  lightly 
of  life  to  expect  any  other.  After  all,  what 
call  had  I  to  interrupt  your  life,— to  burden 
you  with  a  trouble,  a  choice,  a  decision?  As 
much  as  anything  that  I  have  ever  known  in 
you  I  admire  your  beautiful  delicacy  of  con 


science/' 


"Ah,"  said  the  young  girl,  with  a  moan, 
"don't  kill  me  with  fine  names!' 

And  then  came  the  farewell.  "I  feel,"  said 
poor  Coquelin,  "that  I  can't  see  you  again. 


132  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

We  must  not  meet.  I  will  leave  Bergerac  im 
mediately, — to-night, — under  pretext  of  hav 
ing  been  summoned  home  by  my  mother's  ill 
ness.  In  a  few  days  I  will  write  to  your 
brother  that  circumstances  forbid  me  to  re 
turn." 

My  own  part  in  this  painful  interview  I  shall 
not  describe  at  length.  When  it  began  to 
dawn  upon  my  mind  that  my  friend  was  actu 
ally  going  to  disappear,  I  was  seized  with  a 
convulsion  of  rage  and  grief.  "Ah,"  cried 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  bitterly,  "that  was  all  that 
wras  wanting!"  What  means  were  taken  to 
restore  me  to  composure,  wrhat  promises  were 
made  me,  wThat  pious  deception  was  practised. 
I  forget ;  but,  when  at  last  I  came  to  my  senses, 
Coquelin  had  made  his  exit. 

My  aunt  took  me  by  the  hand  and  prepared 
to  lead  me  up  to  bed,  fearing  naturally  that 
my  ruffled  aspect  and  swollen  visage  would 
arouse  suspicion.  At  this  moment  I  heard  the 
clatter  of  hoofs  in  the  court,  mingled  writh  the 
sound  of  voices.  From  the  window,  I  saw 


GABRIELLE    I)E    BERGERAC 


M.  de  Treuil  and  my  father  alighting  from 
horseback.  Mile.  de  Bergerac,  apparently, 
made  the  same  observation;  she  dropped  my 
hand  and  sank  down  in  a  chair.  She  was  not 
left  long  in  suspense.  Perceiving  a  light  in  the 
saloon,  the  two  gentlemen  immediately  made 
their  way  to  this  apartment.  They  came  in 
together,  arm  in  arm,  the  Vicornte  dressed  in 
mourning.  Just  within  the  threshold  they 
stopped;  my  father  disengaged  his  arm,  took 
his  companion  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  Mile. 
de  Bergerac.  She  rose  to  her  feet  as  you  may 
imagine  a  sitting  statue  to  rise.  The  Vicomte 
bent  his  knee. 

"At  last,  mademoiselle,"  said  he,  —  "sooner 
than  I  had  hoped,  —  my  long  probation  is  fin 
ished." 

The  young  girl  spoke,  but  no  one  would 
have  recognized  her  voice.  "I  fear,  M.  le 
Vicomte,"  she  said,  "that  it  has  only  begun." 

The  Vicomte  broke  into  a  harsh,  nervous 
laugh. 


(JABKIKLLK    I)E    HKIKJKKAC' 


"Fol  dc  rol,  mademoiselle/1  cried  my  father, 
"your  pleasantry  is  in  very  had  taste." 

Hut  the  Yicomte  had  recovered  himself. 
"Mademoiselle  is  quite  right/1  he  declared; 
"she  means  that  I  must  now  begin  to  deserve 
my  happiness/'  This  little  speech  showed  a 
very  hrave  fancy.  It  was  in  flagrant  discord 
with  the  expression  of  the  poor  girl's  figure, 
as  she  stood  twisting  her  hands  together  and 
rolling  her  eyes,  —  an  image  of  sombre  despera 
tion. 

My  father  felt  there  was  a  storm  in  the  air. 
"M.  le  Yicomte  is  in  mourning  for  M.  de  Sor- 
bieres,"  he  said.  "M.  le  Vicomte  is  his  sole 
legatee.  lie  comes  to  exact  the  fulfilment  of 
your  promise/' 

"I  made  no  promise,"  said  Mile,  de  Ber- 
gerac. 

"Excuse  me,  mademoiselle;  you  gave  your 
word  that  you'd  wait  for  me." 

"Gracious  heaven!"  cried  the  young  girl; 
"haven't  I  waited  for  you!" 

"Ma  tonic  belle"  said  the  Baron,  trying  to 


(;ABKIELI.E  DE  MERGER  AC 


keep  his  angry  voice  within  the  compass  of 
an  undertone,  and  reducing  it  in  the  effort  to 
a  very  ugly  whisper,  "if  1  had  supposed  you 
were  going  to  make  us  a  scene,  nom  dc  Dicn! 
I  would  have  taken  my  precautions  before 
hand!  You  know  what  you're  to  expect. 
Vieomte,  keep  her  to  her  word.  I'll  give  you 
half  an  hour.  Come,  Chevalier."  And  he  took 
me  by  the  hand. 

We  had  crossed  the  threshold  and  reached 
the  hall,  when  I  heard  the  Vieomte  give  a  long 
moan,  half  plaintive,  half  indignant.  My  fa 
ther  turned,  and  answered  with  a  fierce,  inar 
ticulate  cry,  which  I  can  best  describe  as  a  roar. 
lie  straightway  retraced  his  steps,  I,  of 
course,  following.  Exactly  what,  in  the  brief 
interval,  had  passed  between  our  companions  I 
am  unable  to  say;  but  it  was  plain  that  Mile. 
de  Uergerac,  by  some  cruelly  unerring  word  or 
act,  had  discharged  the  bolt  of  her  refusal. 
Her  gallant  lover  had  sunk  into  a  chair,  bury 
ing  his  face  in  his  hands,  and  stamping  his  feet 
on  the  floor  in  a  frenzy  of  disappointment. 


130  GABKIELLE    DE    HERGERAC 

She  stood  regarding  him  in  a  sort  of  helpless, 
distant  pity.  My  father  had  been  going  to 
break  out  into  a  storm  of  imprecations;  but  he 
suppressed  them,  and  folded  his  arms. 

"And  now,  mademoiselle,"  he  said,  "will  you 
be  so  good  as  to  inform  me  of  your  intentions?" 

Beneath  my  father's  ga/e  the  softness  passed 
out  of  my  aunt's  faee  and  gave  plaee  to  an 
angry  defiance,  which  he  must  have  recognized 
as  cousin-german,  at  least,  to  the  passion  in  his 
own  breast.  "My  intentions  had  been,"  she 
said,  "to  let  M.  le  Vicomte  know  that  1  couldn't 
marry  him,  with  as  little  offence  as  possible. 
But  you  seem  determined,  my  brother,  to 
thrust  in  a  world  of  offence  somewhere." 

You  must  not  blame  Mile,  de  Bergerac  for 
the  sting  of  her  retort.  She  foresaw  a  hard 
fight;  she  had  only  sprung  to  her  arms. 

My  father  looked  at  the  wretched  Vicomte, 
as  he  sat  sobbing  and  stamping  like  a  child. 
His  bosom  was  wrung  with  pity  for  his  friend. 
"Look  at  that  dear  Gaston,  that  charming  man, 
and  blush  for  your  audacity." 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC  137 

"I  know  a  great  deal  more  about  my  au 
dacity  than  you,  brother.  I  might  tell  you 
things  that  would  surprise  you." 

"Gabrielle,  you  are  mad!"  the  Baron  broke 
out. 

''Perhaps  I  am,"  said  the  young  girl.  And 
then,  turning  to  M.  de  Treuil,  in  a  tone  of  ex 
quisite  reproach,  "M.  le  Vicomte,  you  suffer 
less  well  than  I  had  hoped." 

My  father  could  endure  no  more.  lie  seized 
his  sister  by  her  two  wrists,  so  that  beneath 
the  pressure  her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 
"Heartless  fool!"  he  cried,  "do  you  know  what 
I  can  do  to  you?" 

"I  can  imagine,  from  this  specimen,"  said 
the  poor  creature. 

The  Baron  was  beside  himself  with  passion. 
"Down,  down  on  your  knees,"  he  went  on,  "and 
beg  our  pardon  all  round  for  your  senseless, 
shameless  perversity!"  As  he  spoke,  he  in 
creased  the  pressure  of  his  grasp  to  that  degree 
that,  after  a  vain  struggle  to  free  herself,  she 
uttered  a  scream  of  pain.  The  Vicomte  sprang 


138  GABUIELLE    DP:    BERGERAC 

to  his  feet.  "In  heaven's  name,  Gabrielle," 
he  cried, — and  it  was  the  only  real  ndivctc  that 
he  had  ever  uttered, — "isn't  it  all  a  horrible 
jest?" 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  shook  her  head.  "It 
seems  hard,  Vicomte,"  she  said,  "that  I  should 
be  answerable  for  your  happiness." 

"You  hold  it  there  in  your  hand.  Think 
of  what  I  suffer.  To  have  lived  for  weeks 
in  the  hope  of  this  hour,  and  to  find  it  what 
you  would  fain  make  it!  To  have  dreamed  of 
rapturous  bliss,  and  to  wake  to  find  it  hideous 
misery!  Think  of  it  onee  again!" 

"She  shall  have  a  chance  to  think  of  it,"  the 
Baron  declared;  "she  shall  think  of  it  quite  at 
her  ease.  Go  to  your  room,  mademoiselle,  and 
remain  there  till  further  notice." 

Gabrielle  prepared  to  go,  but,  as  she  moved 
away,  "I  used  to  fear  you,  brother,"  she  said 
with  homely  scorn,  "but  I  don't  fear  you  now. 
Judge  whether  it's  because  I  love  you  more!" 

"Gabrielle,"  the  Vicomte  cried  out,  "I 
haven't  given  you  up." 


GABRIEL.LE    DE    BERGERAC  139 

"Your  feelings  are  your  own,  M.  le  Vicomte. 
I  would  have  given  more  than  I  can  say  rather 
than  have  caused  you  to  suffer.  Your  asking 
my  hand  has  been  the  great  honor  of  my  life; 
my  withholding  it  has  been  the  great  trial." 
.And  she  walked  out  of  the  room  with  the  step 
of  unacted  tragedy.  My  father,  with  an  oath, 
despatched  me  to  bed  in  her  train.  Heavy- 
headed  with  the  recent  spectacle  of  so  much 
half-apprehended  emotion,  I  speedily  fell 
asleep. 

I  was  aroused  by  the  sound  of  voices,  and 
the  grasp  of  a  heavy  hand  on  my  shoulder. 
My  father  stood  before  me,  holding  a  candle, 
with  M.  de  Treuil  beside  him.  "Chevalier," 
he  said,  "open  your  eyes  like  a  man,  and  come 
to  your  senses." 

Thus  exhorted,  I  sat  up  and  stared.  The 
Baron  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed.  "This 
evening,"  he  began,  "before  the  Vicomte  and 
I  came  in,  were  you  alone  with  your  aunt?" 
-My  dear  friend,  you  see  the  scene  from  here. 
I  answered  with  the  cruel  directness  of  my 


140  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

years.  Even  if  I  had  had  the  wit  to  dissemble, 
I  should  have  lacked  the  courage.  Of  course 
I  had  no  story  to  tell.  I  had  drawn  no  infer 
ences  ;  I  didn't  say  that  my  tutor  was  my  aunt's 
lover.  I  simply  said  that  he  had  been  with  us 
after  supper,  and  that  he  wanted  my  aunt  to 
go  away  with  him.  Such  was  my  part  in  the 
play.  I  see  the  whole  picture  again, — my  fa 
ther  brandishing  the  candlestick,  and  devour 
ing  my  words  with  his  great  flaming  eyes ;  and 
the  Vicomte  behind,  portentously  silent,  with 
his  black  clothes  and  his  pale  face. 

They  had  not  been  three  minutes  out  of  the- 
room  when  the  door  leading  to  my  aunt's  cham 
ber  opened  and  Mile,  de  Bergerac  appeared. 
She  had  heard  sounds  in  my  apartment,  and 
suspected  the  visit  of  the  gentlemen  and  its  mo 
tive.  She  immediately  won  from  me  the  recital 
of  what  I  had  been  forced  to  avow.  "Poor 
Chevalier,"  she  cried,  for  all  commentary. 
And  then,  after  a  pause,  "What  made  them 
suspect  that  M.  Coquelin  had  been  with  us?" 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  141 

"They  saw  him,  or  some  one,  leave  the  cha 
teau  as  they  came  in." 

"And  where  have  they  gone  now?" 

"To  supper.  My  father  said  to  M.  de  Treuil 
that  first  of  all  they  must  sup." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  stood  a  moment  in  medi 
tation.  Then  suddenly,  "Get  up,  Chevalier," 
she  said,  "I  want  you  to  go  with  me." 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

"To  M.  Coquelin's." 

I  needed  no  second  admonition.  I  hustled 
on  my  clothes;  Mile,  de  Bergerac  left  the  room 
and  immediately  returned,  clad  in  a  light  man 
tle.  We  made  our  way  undiscovered  to  one  of 
the  private  entrances  of  the  chateau,  hurried 
across  the  park  and  found  a  light  in  the  win 
dow  of  Coquelin's  lodge.  It  was  about  half 
past  nine.  Mile,  de  Bergerac  gave  a  loud 
knock  at  the  door,  and  we  entered  her  lover's 
apartment. 

Coquelin  was  seated  at  his  table  writing.  He 
sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  cry  of  amazement. 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  stood  panting,  with  one 


142  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

hand  pressed  to  her  heart,  while  rapidly  mov 
ing  the  other  as  if  to  enjoin  calmness. 

"They  are  come  back,"  she  began,—  -"M.  de 
Treuil  and  my  brother!" 

"I  thought  he  was  to  come  to-morrow.  Was 
it  a  deception?" 

"Ah,  no!  not  from  him, — an  accident. 
Pierre  Coquelin,  I've  had  such  a  scene!  But 
it's  not  your  fault." 

"What  made  the  scene?" 

"My  refusal,  of  course." 

"You  turned  off  the  Vicomte?" 

"Holy  Virgin!     You  ask  me?" 

"Unhappy  girl!"  cried  Coquelin. 

"No,  I  was  a  happy  girl  to  have  had  a  chance 
to  act  as  my  heart  bade  me.  I  had  faltered 
enough.  But  it  was  hard!" 

"It's  all  hard." 

"The  hardest  is  to  come,"  said  my  aunt. 
She  put  out  her  hand;  he  sprang  to  her  and 
seized  it,  and  she  pressed  his  own  with  vehe 
mence.  "They  have  discovered  our  secret,— 


GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC  143 

don't  ask  how.  It  was  Heaven's  will.  From 
this  moment,  of  course— 

"From  this  moment,  of  course,"  cried  Coque- 
lin,  "I  stay  where  I  am!" 

With  an  impetuous  movement  she  raised 
his  hand  to  her  lips  and  kissed  it.  "You  stay 
where  you  are.  We  have  nothing  to  conceal, 
but  we  have  nothing  to  avow.  We  have  no 
confessions  to  make.  Before  God  we  have 
done  our  duty.  You  may  expect  them,  I 
fancy,  to-night;  perhaps,  too,  they  will  honor 
me  with  a  visit.  They  are  supping  between 
two  battles.  They  will  attack  us  with  fury, 
I  know;  but  let  them  dash  themselves  against 
our  silence  as  against  a  wall  of  stone.  I  have 
taken  my  stand.  My  love,  my  errors,  my  long 
ings,  are  my  own  affair.  My  reputation  is  a 
sealed  book.  Woe  to  him  who  would  force  it 
open!" 

The  poor  girl  had  said  once,  you  know,  that 
she  was  afraid  of  her  nature.  Assuredly  it  had 
now  sprung  erect  in  its  strength;  it  came  hur 
rying  into  action  on  the  winds  of  her  indigna- 


144  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

tion.  "Remember,  Coquelin,"  she  went  on, 
"you  are  still  and  always  my  friend.  You  are 
the  guardian  of  my  weakness,  the  support  of 
my  strength." 

"Say  it  all,  Gain-idle!"  he  cried.  "I'm  for 
ever  and  ever  your  lover!" 

Suddenly,  above  the  music  of  his  voice,  there 
came  a  great  rattling  knock  at  the  door. 
Coquelin  sprang  forward;  it  opened  in  his  face 
and  disclosed  my  father  and  M.  de  Treuil.  I 
have  no  words  in  my  dictionary,  no  images  in 
my  rhetoric,  to  represent  the  sudden  horror 
that  leaped  into  my  father's  face  as  his  eye 
fell  upon  his  sister.  lie  staggered  back  a  step 
and  then  stood  glaring,  until  his  feelings  found 
utterance  in  a  single  word:  "Courcusc!"  I 
have  never  been  able  to  look  upon  the  word  as 
trivial  since  that  moment. 

The  Vicomte  came  striding  past  him  into  the 
room,  like  a  bolt  of  lightning  from  a  rumbling 
cloud,  quivering-  with  baffled  desire,  and  look 
ing  taller  by  the  head  for  his  passion.  "And 
it  was  for  this,  mademoiselle,"  he  cried,  "and 


GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC  145 

for  that!"  and  he  flung  out  a  scornful  hand  to 
ward  Coquelin.  "For  a  beggarly,  boorish,  ig 
norant  pedagogue !" 

Coquelin  folded  his  arms.  "Address  me  di 
rectly,  M.  le  Vicomte,"  he  said;  "don't  fling 
mud  at  me  over  mademoiselle's  head." 

"You  ?  Who  are  you  ?"  hissed  the  nobleman. 
"A  man  doesn't  address  you;  he  sends  his  lack 
eys  to  flog  you!" 

"Well,  M.  le  Vicomte,  you're  complete," 
said  Coquelin,  eyeing  him  from  head  to  foot. 

"Complete T  and  M.  de  Treuil  broke  into 
an  almost  hysterical  laugh.  "I  only  lack  hav 
ing  married  your  mistress!' 

"Ah!"  cried  Mile,  de  Bergerac. 

"O,  you  poor,  insensate  fool!"  said  Coquelin. 

"Heaven  help  me,"  the  young  man  went  on, 
"I'm  ready  to  marry  her  still." 

While  these  words  were  rapidly  exchanged, 
my  father  stood  choking  with  the  confusion  of 
amusement  and  rage.  He  was  stupefied  at  his 
sister's  audacity, — at  the  dauntless  spirit  which 
ventured  to  flaunt  its  shameful  passion  in  the 


146  GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

very  face  of  honor  and  authority.  Yet  that 
simple  interjection  which  I  have  quoted  from 
my  aunt's  lips  stirred  a  secret  tremor  in  his 
heart;  it  was  like  the  striking  of  some  magic 
silver  bell,  portending  monstrous  things.  His 
passion  faltered,  and,  as  his  eyes  glanced  upon 
my  innocent  head  (which,  it  must  be  confessed, 
was  sadly  out  of  place  in  that  pernicious  scene) , 
alighted  on  this  smaller  wrong.  "The  next 
time  you  go  on  your  adventures,  mademoi 
selle,"  he  cried,  "I'd  thank  you  not  to  pollute 
my  son  by  dragging  him  at  your  skirts." 

"I'm  not  sorry  to  have  my  family  present," 
said  the  young  girl,  who  had  had  time  to  col 
lect  her  thoughts.  "I  should  be  glad  even  if 
my  sister  were  here.  I  wish  simply  to  bid  you 
farewell." 

Coquelin,  at  these  words,  made  a  step  to 
wards  her.  She  passed  her  hand  through  his 
arm.  "Things  have  taken  place — and  chiefly 
within  the  last  moment — which  change  the  face 
of  the  future.  You've  done  the  business, 
brother,"  and  she  fixed  her  glittering  eyes  on 


GABRIELLE   DE   BERGERAC 


the  Baron;  "you've  driven  me  back  on  myself. 
I  spared  you,  but  you  never  spared  me.  I 
cared  for  my  name;  you  loaded  it  with  dis 
honor.  I  chose  between  happiness  and  duty,— 
duty  as  you  would  have  laid  it  down:  I  pre 
ferred  duty.  But  now  that  happiness  has  be 
come  one  with  simple  safety  from  violence  and 
insult,  I  go  back  to  happiness.  I  give  you  back 
your  name;  though  I  have  kept  it  more  jeal 
ously  than  you.  I  have  another  ready  for  me. 
O  Messieurs!"  she  cried,  with  a  burst  of  rap 
turous  exaltation,  "for  what  you  have  done  to 
me  I  thank  you." 

My  father  began  to  groan  and  tremble.  He 
had  grasped  my  hand  in  his  own,  which  was 
clammy  with  perspiration.  "For  the  love  of 
God,  Gabrielle,"  he  implored,  "or  the  fear  of 
the  Devil,  speak  so  that  a  sickened,  maddened 
Christian  can  understand  you  !  For  what  pur 
pose  did  you  come  here  to-night?" 

"Mon  Dieu,  it's  a  long  story.  You  made 
short  work  with  it.  I  might  in  justice  do  as 


148  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

much.    I  came  here,  brother,  to  guard  my  repu 
tation,  and  not  to  lose  it." 

All  this  while  my  father  had  neither  looked 
at  Coquelin  nor  spoken  to  him,  either  because 
he  thought  him  riot  worth  his  words,  or  be 
cause  he  had  kept  some  transcendent  insult  in 
reserve.  Here  my  governor  broke  in.  "It 
seems  to  me  time,  M.  le  Baron,  that  I  should 
inquire  the  purpose  of  your  own  visit." 

My  father  stared  a  moment.     "I  came,  M. 
Coquelin,  to  take  you   by  the  shoulders  and 
eject  you  through  that  door,  with  the  further 
impulsion,  if  necessary,  of  a  vigorous  kick." 
"Good!    AndM.  le  Vicomte?" 
"M.  le  Vicomte  came  to  see  it  done." 
"Perfect!    A  little  more  and  you  had  come 
too  late.    I  was  on  the  point  of  leaving  Berge- 
rac.    I  can  put  the  story  into  three  words.     I 
have  been  so  happy  as  to  secure  the  affections 
of  Mile,  de  Bergerac.     She  asked  herself,  de 
voutly,  what  course  of  action  was  possible  un 
der  the  circumstances.     She  decided  that  the 
only  course  wras  that  we  should  immediately 


GABRIELLE    DE    BKKGERAC  149 

separate.  I  had  no  hesitation  in  bringing  my 
residence  with  M.  le  Chevalier  to  a  sudden 
close.  I  was  to  have  quitted  the  chateau  early 
to-morrow  morning,  leaving  mademoiselle  at 
absolute  liberty.  With  her  refusal  of  M.  de 
Treuil  I  have  nothing  to  do.  Her  action  in 
this  matter  seems  to  have  been  strangely  pre 
cipitated,  and  my  own  departure  anticipated  in 
consequence.  It  was  at  her  adjuration  that 
I  was  preparing  to  depart.  She  came  here 
this  evening  to  command  me  to  stay.  In  our 
relations  there  was  nothing  that  the  world  had 
a  right  to  lay  a  finger  upon.  From  the  mo 
ment  that  they  were  suspected  it  was  of  the 
first  importance  to  the  security  and  sanctity 
of  Mile,  de  Bergerac's  position  that  there 
should  be  no  appearance  on  my  part  of  elusion 
or  flight.  The  relations  I  speak  of  had  ceased 
to  exist;  there  was,  therefore,  every  reason 
why  for  the  present  I  should  retain  my  place. 
Mile,  de  Bergerac  had  been  here  some  three 
minutes,  and  had  just  made  known  her  wishes, 
when  you  arrived  with  the  honorable  inten- 


150  GABttlELLE    DE    BERGERAC 

tions  which  you  avow,  and  under  that  illusion 
the  perfect  stupidity  of  which  is  its  least  re 
proach.  In  my  own  turn,  Messieurs,  I  thank 
you!" 

"Gabrielle,"  said  my  father,  as  Coquelin 
ceased  speaking,  "the  long  and  short  of  it  ap 
pears  to  be  that  after  all  you  needn't  rnarry 
this  man.  Am  I  to  understand  that  you  in 
tend  to?" 

"Brother,  I  mean  to  marry  M.  Coquelin." 

My  father  stood  looking  from  the  young  girl 
to  her  lover.  The  Vicomte  walked  to  the  win 
dow,  as  if  he  were  in  want  of  air.  The  night 
was  cool  and  the  window  closed.  lie  tried  the 
sash,  but  for  some  reason  it  resisted.  Where 
upon  he  raised  his  sword-hilt  and  with  a  violent 
blow  shivered  a  pane  into  fragments.  The 
Baron  went  on:  "On  what  do  you  propose  to 
live?" 

"It's  for  me  to  propose,"  said  Coquelin. 
"My  wife  shall  not  suffer." 

"Whither  do  you  mean  to  go?" 

"Since  you're  so  good  as  to  ask, — to  Paris." 


GABRIELLE    DE    BERGERAC  151 

My  father  had  got  back  his  fire.  "Well, 
then,"  he  cried,  "my  bitterest  unforgiveness  go 
with  you,  and  turn  your  unholy  pride  to  ab 
ject  woe!  My  sister  may  marry  a  base-born 
vagrant  if  she  wants,  but  I  shall  not  give  her 
away.  I  hope  you'll  enjoy  the  mud  in  which 
you've  planted  yourself.  1  hope  your  mar 
riage  will  be  blessed  in  the  good  old  fashion, 
and  that  you'll  regard  philosophically  the  sight 
of  a  half-dozen  starving  children.  I  hope 
you'll  enjoy  the  company  of  chandlers  and  cob 
blers  and  scribblers!"  The  Baron  could  go 
no  further.  "Ah,  my  sister!"  he  half  exclaimed. 
His  voice  broke;  he  gave  a  great  convulsive 
sob,  and  fell  into  a  chair. 

"Coquelin,"  said  my  aunt,  "take  me  back  to 
the  chateau." 

As  she  walked  to  the  door,  her  hand  in  the 
young  man's  arm,  the  Vicomte  turned  short 
about  from  the  window,  and  stood  with  his 
drawn  sword,  grimacing  horribly. 

"Not  if  I  can  help  it!"  he  cried  through  his 
teeth,  and  with  a  sweep  of  his  weapon  he  made 


152  GABRIELLE   DE    BERGERAC 

a  savage  thrust  at  the  young  girl's  breast. 
Coquelin,  with  equal  speed,  sprang  before  her, 
threw  out  his  arm,  and  took  the  blow  just  be 
low  the  elbow. 

"Thank  you,  M.  le  Vicomte,"  he  said,  "for 
the  chance  of  calling  you  a  coward !  There  was 
something  I  wanted." 

Mile,  de  Bergerac  spent  the  night  at  the 
chateau,  but  by  early  dawn  she  had  disap 
peared.  Whither  Coquelin  betook  himself 
with  his  gratitude  and  his  wound,  I  know  not. 
He  lay,  I  suppose,  at  some  neighboring  farm 
er's.  My  father  and  the  Vicomte  kept  for  an 
hour  a  silent,  sullen  vigil  in  my  preceptor's  va 
cant  apartment, — for  an  hour  and  perhaps 
longer,  for  at  the  end  of  this  time  I  fell  asleep, 
and  when  I  came  to  my  senses,  the  next  morn 
ing,  I  was  in  my  own  bed. 

M.  de  Bergerac  had  finished  his  talc. 
"But  the  marriage,"  I  asked,  after  a  pause, 
— "was  it  happy?" 

"Reasonably  so,  I  fancy.    There  is  no  doubt 


GABRIELLE   DE    BEKGERAC  ?  53 

that  Coquelin  was  an  excellent  fellow.  They 
had  three  children,  and  lost  them  all.  They 
managed  to  live.  He  painted  portraits  and  did 
literary  work. 

"And  his  wife?" 

"Her  history,  I  take  it,  is  that  of  all  good 
wives :  she  loved  her  husband.  When  the  Revo 
lution  came,  they  went  into  politics;  but  here, 
in  spite  of  his  base  birth,  Coquelin  acted  with 
that  superior  temperance  which  I  always  asso 
ciate  with  his  memory.  He  was  no  sans 
culotte.  They  both  went  to  the  scaffold  among 
the  Girondists." 


\ 


